Volume 48, Number 16 · October 18, 2001
Big Daddy
By Ronald Steel
Hostage to Fortune: The Letters of Joseph P. Kennedy
edited by Amanda Smith
Viking, 764 pp., $39.95
Joseph Kennedy lived an ironic life. Were it not for the political celebrity of his sons, he would long ago have sunk into the tenebrous depths where other speculators and moguls of the 1920s and 1930s lie. But were it not for his money and insatiable ambition, they would have led longer and more tranquil lives. And we would be deprived of the political dynasty that—in a particularly American combination of money, power, and glamour—provides us with the royal family many of us secretly yearn for.
Review, 4036 words
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