cover image A Twilight Struggle: The Life of John Fitzgerald Kennedy

A Twilight Struggle: The Life of John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Barbara Harrison. HarperCollins Publishers, $18 (159pp) ISBN 978-0-688-08830-9

Great affection for its subject marks this portrait of one of our most popular presidents. Fortunately for the reader, the adulation is tempered with some honest looks at the failures of the president who reigned over an American Camelot: the Bay of Pigs, his overly cautious stand on civil rights, his gross infidelity to his wife. The authors successfully reveal Kennedy for the man he was, one with high ideals who tried his best to live up to them and inspired others to do likewise. While the book briefly examines the dispute over the authorship of Profiles in Courage , there are items currently being debated in scholarly circles they did not touch upon, namely the charges that the events of PT-109 were substantially fabricated. Despite the book's rather textbookish appearance, it will be a useful research tool for young historians. Ages 10-up. (May)