The Patriarch
The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy
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Narrated by:
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Malcolm Hillgartner
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By:
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David Nasaw
About this listen
Celebrated historian David Nasaw brings to life the story of Joseph Patrick Kennedy, in this, the first and only biography based on unrestricted and exclusive access to the Joseph P. Kennedy papers.
Joseph Patrick Kennedy - whose life spanned the First World War, the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, the Second World War, and the Cold War - was the patriarch of America’s greatest political dynasty. The father of President John F. Kennedy and Senators Robert and Edward Kennedy, 'Joe' Kennedy was an indomitable and elusive figure whose dreams of advancement for his nine children were matched only by his extraordinary personal ambition and shrewd financial skills. Trained as a banker, Kennedy was also a Hollywood mogul, a stock-exchange savant, a shipyard manager, the founding chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and ambassador to London during the Battle of Britain. Though his incredible life encompasses the very heart of the American century, Joseph Kennedy has remained shrouded in rumor and prejudice for decades.
Drawing on never-before-published material from archives on three continents, David Nasaw - the renowned biographer of Andrew Carnegie and William Randolph Hearst - unearths a man far more complicated than the popular portrait. Was Kennedy an appeaser and isolationist, an anti-Semite and Nazi sympathizer, a stock swindler, a bootlegger, and a colleague of mobsters? Did he push his second son into politics and then buy his elections for him? Why did he have his daughter Rosemary lobotomized? Why did he oppose the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, the Korean War, and American assistance to the French in Vietnam? What was his relationship to J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI? How did he influence his son’s politics and policies in the White House?
In this groundbreaking biography, Nasaw ignores the tired old answers surrounding Kennedy, starting from scratch to discover the truth behind this misunderstood man.
Though far from a saint, Joseph Kennedy in many ways exemplifies the best in American political, economic, and social life. His rags-to-riches story is one of exclusion and quiet discrimination overcome by entrepreneurship, ingenuity, and unshakable endurance. Kennedy’s story deserves to be told in full, with no holds barred, and Nasaw’s magnificent The Patriarch is the first book to do so.
©2012 David Nasaw (P)2012 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
One of the New York Times' Ten Best Books of the Year
One of Kirkus' Best Nonfiction Books of the Year
"Riveting.... The Patriarch is a book hard to put down.... As his son indelibly put it some months before his father was struck down: 'Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your county.' One wonders what was going through the mind of the patriarch, sitting a few feet away listening to that soaring sentiment as a fourth-generation Kennedy became president of the United States. After coming to know him over the course of this brilliant, compelling book, the reader might suspect that he was thinking he had done more than enough for his country. But the gods would demand even more." (New York Times Book Review)
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Ted Sorensen, John F. Kennedy's closest advisor, recounts in full, for the first time, his experience counseling Kennedy through some of the most dramatic moments in American history. Rising from legislative assistant to speechwriter and advisor, the young lawyer from Nebraska worked closely with JFK on his most important speeches, as well as his book Profiles in Courage. Sorensen encouraged the junior senator's political ambitions and was later named special counsel to the president.
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Rare Insight
- By Robert on 05-10-08
By: Ted Sorensen
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Coolidge
- By: Amity Shlaes
- Narrated by: Terence Aselford
- Length: 21 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Calvin Coolidge, president from 1923 to 1929, never rated highly in polls, and history has remembered the decade in which he served as an extravagant period predating the Great Depression. Now Amity Shlaes provides a fresh look at the 1920s and its elusive president, showing that the mid-1920s was in fact a triumphant period that established our modern way of life: The nation electrified, Americans drove their first cars, and the federal deficit was replaced with a surplus.
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Silent Cal
- By Jean on 02-19-13
By: Amity Shlaes
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The Irregulars
- Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington
- By: Jennet Conant
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Prior to the U.S. entering WWII, a small coterie of British spies in Washington, D.C., was formed. They called themselves the Baker Street Irregulars after the band of street urchins who were the eyes and ears of Sherlock Holmes in some Arthur Conan Doyle stories.
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Spying in Washington
- By Sara on 10-03-14
By: Jennet Conant
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The Presidents Club
- Inside the World's Most Exclusive Fraternity
- By: Nancy Gibbs, Michael Duffy
- Narrated by: Bob Walter
- Length: 22 hrs
- Unabridged
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The Presidents Club was born at Eisenhower’s inauguration when Harry Truman and Herbert Hoover first conceived the idea. Over the years that followed - and to this day - the presidents relied on, misunderstood, sabotaged, and formed alliances with one another that changed history. The world’s most exclusive fraternity is a complicated place: its members are bound forever because they sat in the Oval Office and know its secrets, yet they are immortal rivals for history’s favor.
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Engaging subject, but fact-checking needed
- By loix on 04-25-12
By: Nancy Gibbs, and others
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Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero
- By: Chris Matthews
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In Chris Matthews’ extraordinary biography, we see this most beloved president in the company of friends. We see and feel him close-up, having fun and giving off that restlessness of his. We watch him navigate his life from privileged, rebellious youth to gutsy American president. We witness his bravery in war and selfless rescue of his PT boat crew. We watch JFK as a young politician learning to play hardball and watch him grow into the leader who averts a nuclear war.
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What Might Have Been?
- By Mel on 12-06-11
By: Chris Matthews
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JFK's Last Hundred Days
- The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President
- By: Thurston Clarke
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 14 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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A revelatory, minute-by-minute account of JFK’s final days that asks what might have been. Fifty years after his assassination, President John F. Kennedy’s legend endures. Noted author and historian Thurston Clarke reexamines the last months of the president’s life to show a man in the midst of great change, both in his family and in the key issues of his day: The Cold War, Civil Rights, and Vietnam, finally on the cusp of making good on his extraordinary promise.
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In Depth and Beautifully Written
- By grace on 06-03-23
By: Thurston Clarke
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Hoover
- An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times
- By: Kenneth Whyte
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
- Length: 27 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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The definitive biography of Herbert Hoover, one of the most remarkable Americans of the 20th century - a revisionist account that will forever change the way Americans understand the man, his presidency, and his battle against the Great Depression. A poor orphan who built a fortune, a great humanitarian, a president elected in a landslide and then routed in the next election, arguably the father of both New Deal liberalism and modern conservatism - Herbert Hoover is also one of our least understood presidents.
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What a fascinating story!
- By Dan Ryan on 11-18-17
By: Kenneth Whyte
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Truman
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 54 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Hailed by critics as an American masterpiece, David McCullough's sweeping biography of Harry S. Truman captured the heart of the nation. The life and times of the 33rd president of the United States, Truman provides a deeply moving look at an extraordinary, singular American.
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That Mousy Little Man From Missouri Revisited
- By Sara on 07-23-15
By: David McCullough
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The Rockefellers
- By: Peter Collier, David Horowitz
- Narrated by: Michael Anthony
- Length: 30 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Against a richly detailed backdrop of history, the story of this unique American family unfolds. It begins with John D. Rockefeller Sr., who amassed a fortune amid the muck and disorder of the Pennsylvania oil fields and left his son to deal with the public outcry.
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Too Long
- By Rohit on 05-25-07
By: Peter Collier, and others
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The Bully Pulpit
- Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism
- By: Doris Kearns Goodwin
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 36 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Goodwin describes the broken friendship between Teddy Roosevelt and his chosen successor, William Howard Taft. With the help of the "muckraking" press, Roosevelt had wielded the Bully Pulpit to challenge and triumph over abusive monopolies, political bosses, and corrupting money brokers. Roosevelt led a revolution that he bequeathed to Taft only to see it compromised as Taft surrendered to money men and big business. The rupture led Roosevelt to run against Taft for president, an ultimately futile race that gave power away to the Democrats.
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Makes You Forget You Live in the 21st Century Good
- By Cynthia on 01-11-14
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The Hopkins Touch
- By: David Roll
- Narrated by: Fleet Cooper
- Length: 18 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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The Hopkins Touch offers the first portrait in over two decades of the most powerful man in Roosevelt's administration. David Roll shows how Harry Hopkins, an Iowa-born social worker who had been an integral part of the New Deal's implementation, became the linchpin in FDR's - and America's - relationships with Churchill and Stalin, and spoke with an authority second only to the president's.
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Hopkins - the glue of the tripartite coalition
- By Chrissie on 05-19-13
By: David Roll
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The Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson
- The White House Years
- By: Joseph A. Califano Jr.
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 17 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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President Lyndon Johnson was bigger than life - and no one who worked for him or was subjected to the "Johnson treatment" ever forgot it. As Johnson's "Deputy President of Domestic Affairs", Joseph A. Califano's unique relationship with the president greatly enriches our understanding of our 36th president. Califano shows listeners LBJ's commitment to economic and social revolution, and his willingness to do whatever it took to achieve his goals.
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LBJ The Greatest President of 20th century
- By David W. Goldstein on 07-28-15
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An Unfinished Life is the first authoritative single-volume life of John F. Kennedy to be written by a historian in nearly four decades. Drawing upon firsthand sources, freshly unearthed documents, and never-before-opened archives, prizewinning historian Robert Dallek reveals more than we ever knew about Jack Kennedy forever changing the way we think about his life, his presidency, and his legacy.
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A Fantastic Listen!!! Highly Recommend!
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Custer and his times
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Bankers, philanthropists, scholars, socialites, artists, and politicians, the Warburgs stood at the pinnacle of German (and, later, German American) Jewry. They forged economic dynasties, built mansions and estates, assembled libraries, endowed charities, and advised a German kaiser and two American presidents. But their very success made the Warburgs lightning rods for anti-Semitism, and their sense of patriotism became increasingly dangerous in a Germany that had declared Jews the enemy.
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The Warburg's Dynamic Family History
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The Kennedy Curse
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Death was merciful to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, for it spared her a parent's worst nightmare: the loss of a child. But if Jackie had lived to see her son, JFK Jr., perish in a plane crash on his way to his cousin's wedding, she would have been doubly horrified by the familiar pattern in the tragedy. Once again, on a day that should have been full of joy and celebration, America's first family was struck by the Kennedy Curse.
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An Apt Title for a Dysfunctional Family
- By Admiralu on 07-18-19
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JFK and the Unspeakable
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At the height of the Cold War, JFK risked committing the greatest crime in human history: starting a nuclear war. Horrified by the specter of nuclear annihilation, Kennedy gradually turned away from his long-held Cold Warrior beliefs and toward a policy of lasting peace. But to the military and intelligence agencies in the United States, who were committed to winning the Cold War at any cost, Kennedy's change of heart was a direct threat to their power and influence.
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One Book EVERY AMERICAN Needs to Read
- By Peter on 06-09-12
What listeners say about The Patriarch
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Neil
- 02-17-13
Interesting but sounds sanitized
Any additional comments?
The many ways he made his money are well covered. So are his politics and misadventures as Ambassador to England. His strengths as a father are nicely recounted. His understandable frustration with the Catholic Church's failure to support JFK's 1960 candidacy is the biggest revelation.
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3 people found this helpful
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- margot
- 03-18-13
Much better than it had to be
I cannot complain about Nasaw's writing: he is generous and understanding. I liked Joe Kennedy going in, and he didn't suffer much on the way. Nasaw disposes of the "bootlegger" lie handily; it is too bad he had to bother with that at all. A little more on the Hollywood years would have been appreciated here, but there is only so much you can squeeze into a fat biography.
My reservations are mainly about the narration, which does not seem to have suffered any decent editor's fine hand. The narrator does not know what he is talking about sometimes, continually pronouncing the Astors' Cliveden House as Clyve-den (it's 'Clivdin'); he also repeatedly mispronounces the name Cadogan (as in the Irish surname, the peer and the multiple placenames in London) as Ca-dough-gin when it is of course Ca-duggin. He turns Noroton, Connecticut into Norritin (rather than 'Nor-O-tin'). And so on. These are not minor quibbles. If one is going to speak of the 'Cliveden Set' many times, one should at least know how to pronounce it.
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2 people found this helpful
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- MP
- 04-17-13
Magnificent
One of the best - and most gripping - biographies I have ever read. The reader is excellent - even his approximation of various accents is good and not distracting.
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3 people found this helpful
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- barrett clark
- 08-18-21
E
Please UFC c c C I ss bjob. D. Yes DT as sch more a
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- Patrick Kelly
- 01-03-24
How little I knew or understood of the life of JPK!
David Nasaw’s work as a biographer is masterful. Truly a great book, and a must read.
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- Vicki
- 11-21-24
Excellent Narration
I loved learning about Joe Kennedy. Fascinating man fixated on building a kind of wealth & influence for his family even more than for himself. The narrator was excellent.
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- Elizabeth72
- 11-24-12
A "Must Read" for Irish Americans
A very well researched page-turner, with lots of fascinating details about Joseph Kennedy and the world in which he lived. I enjoyed it immensely.
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2 people found this helpful
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- thirdandblonde
- 08-19-19
White Washed
Well written, great narration and a solid review of Joe Kennedy’s life but seems to be very very clean version of his, and his son’s life’s and their political career. I guess it is what you would expect since the family paid the author to write the book.
Still a fascinating book and life, just doesn’t seem to give the whole ugly truth especially around his kids.
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- Mary
- 06-04-13
Knowing Joseph Kennedy
Where does The Patriarch rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
It's a very good biography. Not the most exciting non-fiction audiobook I've listened to, but still very enjoyable and informative.
What did you like best about this story?
I liked best the author's analysis outsiders' opinion of Joe Kennedy was the best part. He gives both the central character's opinions, but also those of outsiders, citing writings and interviews and even speculating based on actions and knowledge of Kennedy's contemporaries.
What does Malcolm Hillgartner bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
I enjoyed his use of appropriate accents when reading quotes by different people in the book. It was wide-ranging, but particularly pronounced in the Bostonian and English accents.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
This book encourages thought and pondering of the people in the book as well as the times they lived in. I cannot say it was one I would have enjoyed in a single sitting, as the facts presented are a lot to digest.
Any additional comments?
I think it's the best way to read this kind of book. The sentences of this particular author are very long, and in some places the topic is a little dry. An audio book is ideal for these sorts of books in which you want to get the facts and the story, but don't want to have to sit and read it.
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- despinne
- 07-24-23
Saint Joe
Despite the book's protestation that Joe is no saint, his shortcomings are given short shrift. His participation in bootlegging is dismissed with one sentence: he didn't, and all his wealth was from wise investment in real estate and stock market. Hmmm. Also, his connections to the mafia are quite ignored. See books on the JFK assassination for additional info. He is depicted as an exemplary father and patriarch, but his treatment of Rose, whom none of the family visited after her lobotomy altho she lived 25 years more, creates questions. Nor is Mary Jo Kopechne/Chappaquiddick mentioned. At all. The most honest part of the book, which is obviously a puff piece for the family, concerns his heavy-handed ambassadorship in England. This may be because the author relies on public documents and records. In London, Joe tried to create US policy without consultation with Pres Roosevelt or the Sec of State, with the consequence that eventually they began to discuss state policy/events without telling Joe. He was stung. He demanded the post of Treasury secretary, but was denied. This lengthy tome eventually ends. There is likely a contrasting story somewhere... Overall, a good read, but way toooo long.
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