Description: America's Reluctant Prince by Steven M. Gillon A major new biography of John F. Kennedy Jr. from a close friend that paints a deeply researched, personal, surprising, and revealing portrait. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description Now in paperback, a major new biography of John F. Kennedy Jr. from a leading historian who was also a close friend, Americas Reluctant Prince is a deeply researched, personal, surprising, and revealing portrait of the Kennedy heir the world lost too soon.*A New York Times Bestseller*A major new biography of John F. Kennedy Jr. from a leading historian who was also a close friend, Americas Reluctant Prince is a deeply researched, personal, surprising, and revealing portrait of the Kennedy heir the world lost too soon.Through the lens of their decades-long friendship and including exclusive interviews and details from previously classified documents, noted historian andNew York Timesbestselling author Steven M. Gillon examines John F. Kennedy Jr.s life and legacy from before his birth to the day he died. Gillon covers the highs, the lows, and the surprising incidents, viewpoints, and relationships that John never discussed publicly, revealing the full story behind JFK Jr.s complicated and rich life. In the end, Gillon proves that Johns life was far more than another tragedy-rather, its the true key to understanding both the Kennedy legacy and how Americas first family continues to shape the world we live in today. Author Biography Steven M. Gillon is the scholar in residence at the History Channel and a professor of history at the University of Oklahoma. He is one of the nations leading experts on modern American history and politics, and his articles have appeared in academic journals and such newspapers as the Los Angeles Times, New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, and The Boston Globe. He is a frequent contributor to HuffPostand has made appearances on NBCs Today show, ABCs Good Morning America, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News as a commentator and expert on issues related to modern American history. He has written or edited nearly a dozen books, including the New York Times bestsellersAmericas Reluctant Prince- The Life of John F. Kennedy Jr. andThe Pact- Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and the Rivalry That Defined a Generation. Review "[Gillon] reveals a JFK Jr. more complex, more introspective, and more human than the world ever knew."—People"A brisk and engaging read . . . A fond and admiring adieu to a friend."—The Boston Globe"This deeply researched biography from the History Channel scholar in residence flows like a novel. . . . Readers fascinated by the Kennedys will be delighted by this captivating biography."—Library Journal (starred review)"I read this one for work and didnt expect to enjoy it as much as I did. . . . It provided a lot of insight into the dawn of celebrity culture and the rise of People magazine."—Jezebel Promotional *A New York Times Bestseller*A major new biography of John F. Kennedy Jr. from a leading historian who was also a close friend, Americas Reluctant Prince is a deeply researched, personal, surprising, and revealing portrait of the Kennedy heir the world lost too soon. Review Quote "[Gillon] reveals a JFK Jr. more complex, more introspective, and more human than the world ever knew." -- People "A brisk and engaging read . . . A fond and admiring adieu to a friend." --The Boston Globe "This deeply researched biography from the History Channel scholar in residence flows like a novel. . . . Readers fascinated by the Kennedys will be delighted by this captivating biography." --Library Journal (starred review) "I read this one for work and didnt expect to enjoy it as much as I did. . . . It provided a lot of insight into the dawn of celebrity culture and the rise of People magazine." -- Jezebel Promotional "Headline" *A New York Times Bestseller* A major new biography of John F. Kennedy Jr. from a leading historian who was also a close friend, Americas Reluctant Prince is a deeply researched, personal, surprising, and revealing portrait of the Kennedy heir the world lost too soon. Excerpt from Book PREFACE "DONT BE JOHN KENNEDY" I met John F. Kennedy Jr. in the spring of 1981, when I was a twenty-five- year-old graduate student. He was a twenty-one-year-old sophomore history major at Brown University, and I was the teaching assistant in a class on twentieth-century American political history. Our friendship got off to an inauspicious start. Before the semester began, the professor, renowned historian James T. Patterson, told me that he wanted his assistants to deliver a lecture as preparation for a teaching career. I had applied to the PhD program in American civilization to study early American history, so I was not as familiar with the recent past. I had, however, always been fascinated with the 1960s, and the Kennedy presidency in particular. So I decided to give a critical lecture on JFK and civil rights. I had been vaguely aware that John was on campus and had seen him several times, usually surrounded by a gaggle of giddy girls. It never occurred to me that he would take a class that would deal with his fathers presidency. On the first day, I stood in the back of the room handing out syllabi to students pouring into the Manning Chapel classroom. Looking over the line of students, I spied a large mane of unruly brown hair slowly approaching me. "Please, no," I thought to myself. "Dont be John Kennedy." It was bad enough that I would be speaking in public for the first time and doing so in front of the professor I wanted as my advisor. Now I faced the prospect of criticizing a president while his son looked on. A few seconds later, John approached, reached for the syllabus, thanked me, and then sat down in the back of the room. I would have tried switching my topic had I thought Patterson would allow it. But I would need a better excuse than "I am afraid to give a lecture about President Kennedy while John is in the class." That statement would surely have marked the end of my graduate career, and rightly so. My talk was scheduled for March, so for the next few months, I labored to write and rehearse the lecture. It took about five weeks to write the talk, and then I spent another four weeks practicing it. Every day, I would recite the entire fifty-minute lecture before breakfast, after dinner, and again before I went to sleep. I had a lot on the line. Not only would I be giving a public lecture for the first time--and doing so in front of more than a hun- dred bright Brown undergraduates--but also I was auditioning for a spot as one of Pattersons PhD students. Oh, and then there was John, although I must confess, Patterson scared me more than John. At 10:55 a.m. on the day of my lecture, I marched into the hall and took my position behind the podium, hands tucked safely in my pockets so students would not see them shaking. Professor Patterson took a seat in the middle of the room. Looking around, I took some comfort in seeing that John was absent, a not-uncommon occurrence. But just as I was about to start, the back door swung open and in he walked. Students have a natural tendency to sit as far away from the professor as possible, so the back rows were full. John kept moving forward until he plopped down in the seat directly in front of me. John and I sat only a few feet apart that day, but we came from vastly different worlds. I grew up in a working-class family outside Philadelphia. I had been a mediocre student for most of my life but finally turned things around in college, earning good enough grades to get accepted at Brown. Education has often been the pathway to the American Dream, and that was certainly true in my case. Getting into Brown was my big break. There was no way I was going to screw up this opportunity. The first line of my lecture, which I can still recall almost four decades later, read: "President Kennedy was a pragmatist who did not impose moral solutions on problems." Simple enough. Yet somehow my well-rehearsed words escaped me the moment I needed them most. I stood in front of the room paralyzed by fear--fear of the one hundred students in the class, fear of my intimidating professor, and, perhaps, fear of giving a lecture about a man while his son sat a few feet away. My first public lecture thus began with a succession of "Ahs" and "Ums." My mind had gone blank. I thought, "Just look down and read the words on the page in front of you." During times of crisis, some people are able to reach deep down inside themselves and find a vast reservoir of strength. I am not one of those people. I hyperventilate. I sweat. I grow more and more anxious. I finally looked down at my notes, but by this point everything had grown fuzzy. What in the world was I going to do? Either I said something soon, or I would be forced to run out of the room humiliated and resign myself to a short life doing manual labor. I kept repeating to myself, Say something. Anything. So I did. "President Kennedy," I began, "President Kennedy. President Kennedy had no moral scruples." I have absolutely no idea where that came from, but that was what came out. As soon as the words left my lips, I realized I was in trouble. I glanced down at John, who glared up at me. Then a student in the back of the room, who was too far away to see the look of terror on my face, must have assumed that it was all a joke. She laughed and the entire class joined in. That laugh saved my career. With the ice broken, I went on to finish the lecture. I criticized JFK for being too slow to embrace the civil rights cause but noted that he eventually did, and in a famous June 11, 1963, address, he became the first president in history to refer to the civil rights movement as a "moral cause." Before he left the room, John came up, shook my hand, and said, "Great lecture." It would be several years before John and I became friends. But once the bond formed, we remained friends for the rest of his too-short life. Perhaps surprisingly, given that I am a professional historian, it wasnt until years after his death that I began trying to understand John through the eyes of a scholar. At the beginning of our friendship, I had decided not to read anything about him. I can remember people studying his life as if cramming for a final exam. They wanted to know what he liked and didnt, which foods he ate, which sports he enjoyed, and who his heroes were, all so they could manufacture a conversation and eventually a friendship. John was very good at weeding most of those kinds of people from his life. I wanted my connection with John to be like any other friendship. When we meet someone new, we have a chance to tell our own story. It may not be completely honest, and it certainly will contain elements of exaggeration, but its our personal narrative. I never wanted to take that freedom away from John. Therefore, I only knew what he chose to share with me. After he died, I realized that while I had an intimate understanding of the nuances of his personality, I actually knew very little about his life before Brown. My interest in writing this book, then, grew partly from a need to satisfy my own curiosity, along with a scholarly desire to weave together my personal recollections with the historical record to produce a fuller picture of a truly extraordinary person. This book thus represents a mix of historical analysis and personal reflection. It combines insight gained from nearly two decades of friendship with research into all the relevant historical materials on Johns life. Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who served as an advisor to JFK and who was one of the great historians of the twentieth century, serves as my model. Now, I fully recognize that I am not Schlesinger, and John was not his father. But Schlesingers approach is instructive. In his books about both JFK ( A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House ) and RFK ( Robert Kennedy and His Times ), Schlesinger seamlessly intertwined personal recollections with intensive research and deep historical understanding to produce a vivid portrait of his subject. If he can be faulted for anything, it was for avoiding some of the unseemly aspects of JFKs character: the womanizing and the abuse of prescription medications, among others. But I now understand more fully the challenge Schlesinger faced: as a friend, I was charged with protecting Johns privacy, but as a historian, I am obligated to paint a complete portrait, warts and all. In the end, my duty as a historian supersedes my responsibilities as a friend. As a friend, I understood the role that I played in Johns life. While I knew him for eighteen years, I was not one of his closest friends. Johns friends formed a wheel, with a core group who were involved in every facet of his life. They spent weekends with John on Marthas Vineyard or in Hyannis Port, went camping and kayaking with him, and spent long hours hanging out in his Manhattan apartment. The other friends resembled spokes on the wheel, each playing a specific and specialized role in his life. I was one of those spokes. I understood my place in Johns life was that of the racquetball-playing "professor." When not battling each other on the racquetball court, John and I shared long conversations about politics, current events, and his fathers place in history. He would occasionally share personal stories about his family and about the challenges of growing up the son of a martyred president. Sometimes he would bounce ideas off me for talks he was planning to give. Later, when he started George magazine, John asked me to write a few "Editors Letter" pieces, and he gave me the title of contributing editor. I obviously have a personal investment in telling this story. I agonized over whether I was betraying J Description for Sales People The hardback edition generated great publicity in People and Today and was a New York Times bestseller. A deeply researched biography from a close and personal friend who had unprecedented access. Offers an entirely new perspective on JFK Jr that will change the way he is seen and remembered. JFK Jr. is an enduring, fascinating figure, and the legacy of the Kennedy family remains a source of interest in the UK. Details ISBN1524742406 Author Steven M. Gillon Pages 464 Year 2020 ISBN-10 1524742406 ISBN-13 9781524742409 Format Paperback Short Title Americas Reluctant Prince Language English Subtitle The Life of John F. Kennedy Jr US Release Date 2020-07-07 DEWEY 973.922092 Audience General NZ Release Date 2020-09-14 AU Release Date 2020-09-14 UK Release Date 2020-07-09 Publisher Penguin Putnam Inc Publication Date 2020-07-07 Imprint E P Dutton & Co Inc Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:160098907;
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