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Camelot's Court: Inside the Kennedy White House Audiobook
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Fifty years after John F. Kennedy’s assassination, presidential historian Robert Dallek, whom The New York Times calls “Kennedy’s leading biographer,” delivers a riveting new portrait of this president and his inner circle of advisors—their rivalries, personality clashes, and political battles. In Camelot’s Court, Dallek analyzes the brain trust whose contributions to the successes and failures of Kennedy’s administration—including the Bay of Pigs, civil rights, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Vietnam—were indelible.
Kennedy purposefully put together a dynamic team of advisors noted for their brilliance and acumen, including Attorney General Robert Kennedy, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, and trusted aides Ted Sorensen and Arthur Schlesinger. Yet the very traits these men shared also created sharp divisions. Far from being unified, this was an uneasy band of rivals whose ambitions and clashing beliefs ignited fiery internal debates.
Robert Dallek illuminates a president deeply determined to surround himself with the best and the brightest, who often found himself disappointed with their recommendations. The result, Camelot's Court: Inside the Kennedy White House, is a striking portrait of a leader whose wise resistance to pressure and adherence to principle offers a cautionary tale for our own time.
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“The author of An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963 returns withdescriptions and assessments of the fallen president’s principal advisers…Dallekexamines each of JFK’s crises in detail, focusing on what the advisers were (orwere not) telling him, and he notes several times that their failure to reachconsensus was a serious problem. The author spares no one. He chides JFK forhis womanizing, LBJ for his ego, and McNamara for his credulousness. Here isperhaps the only account of the 1963 March on Washington that does not mentionKing’s speech. More than a little admiring of Arthur, but there's clear-eyedcriticism of his Round Table.”
— Kirkus Reviews
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“Dallek’s portraits of advisers including Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Walt Rostow are lapidary, and it is difficult to quarrel with his judgments.”
— New York Times Book Review -
“Dallek is an assiduous digger into archives…The story of how a glamorous but green young president struggled with conflicting and often bad advice while trying to avoid nuclear Armageddon remains a gripping and cautionary tale of the loneliness of command.”
— Washington Post -
“Think The Best and the Brightest meets Team of Rivals…Dallek is one of the deans of presidential scholarship.”
— Nation -
“Dallek adds new insights beyond those in his excellent 2003 biography of JFK. Here is a compelling view of the president’s often frustrating interactions with cabinet members and high-placed government officials. Verdict: Readers who keep up with the body of work on JFK will appreciate Dallek’s page-turning style. Historians will value his excellent scholarship as he, in effect, revisits David Halberstam's classic, The Best and the Brightest.”
— Library Journal (starred review) -
“After the assassination, Jackie and some Kennedy cabinet members promoted a romanticized vision of the late president. It started with Jackie’s interview with Life magazine, in which she compared the Kennedy White House to King Arthur’s court. A spate of glowing biographies followed. Myths are one thing; facts are another. Camelot’s Court is an unvarnished account of JFK’s inner circle (nicknamed the ‘Ministry of Talent’)…Dallek has cleverly spiced up his scholarly reporting. In doing so, he humanizes the sometimes brittle politician…[and] takes a measured view of what might have happened had JFK not been killed.”
— BookPage
Awards
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One of the Globe and Mail (Toronto) Best Books of 2013
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About Robert Dallek
Robert Dallek is the author of several works of nonfiction, including the #1 New York Times bestseller An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963; Nixon and Kissinger, a Pulitzer Prize finalist and New York Times bestseller; a two-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson, Lone Star Rising and Flawed Giant, among other books. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Atlantic, and Vanity Fair. He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Society of American Historians, for which he served as president in 2004–2005. He has won the Bancroft Prize, among numerous other awards for scholarship and teaching.
About the Narrators
James Lurie, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, has worked for the biggest companies in the news, entertainment, and advertising businesses. He has an eclectic background; he has been a musician, a writer, and a doctoral candidate in Chinese history. He has been an audiobook narrator and even been the voice of a talking gasoline pump. As an actor he has had recurring roles on Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Law & Order, Picket Fences, and As the World Turns, to name but a few, and he won a Dramalogue Award in Los Angeles for his stage work.
Alan Sklar, a graduate of Dartmouth, has excelled in his career as a freelance voice actor. Named a Best Voice of 2009 by AudioFile magazine, his work has earned him several Earphones Awards, a Booklist Editors’ Choice Award (twice), a Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Award, and Audiobook of the Year by ForeWord magazine. He has also narrated thousands of corporate videos for clients such as NASA, Sikorsky Aircraft, IBM, Dannon, Pfizer, AT&T, and SONY.