Random House IncProduct DescriptionNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER " From the?author of Satchel comes an in-depth vibrant and measured biography about the most complex and controversial member of the Kennedy family.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY?THE WASHINGTON POST
History remembers Robert F. Kennedy as a racial healer a tribune for the poor and the last progressive knight of a bygone era of American politics. But Kennedys enshrinement in the liberal pantheon was actually the final stage of a journey that had its beginnings in the conservative 1950s. In Bobby Kennedy Larry Tye peels away layers of myth and misconception to paint a complete portrait of this singularly fascinating figure.
To capture the full arc of his subjects life Tye draws on unpublished memoirs unreleased government files and fifty-eight boxes of papers that had been under lock and key for the past forty years. He conducted hundreds of interviews with RFK intimatesincluding Bobbys widow Ethel his sister Jean and his aide John Siegenthaler?many of whom have never spoken to another biographer. Tye??s determination to sift through the tangle of often contradictory opinions means that Bobby Kennedy will stand as the definitive one-volume biography of a man much beloved?? but just as often misunderstood.
Bobby Kennedy??s transformation from cold warrior to fiery liberal is a profoundly moving personal story that also offers a lens onto two of the most chaotic and confounding decades of twentieth-century American history. The first half of RFK??s career underlines what the country was like in the era of Eisenhower?? while his last years as a champion of the underclass reflect the seismic shifts wrought by the 19