Journals: 1952-2000 | Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

Journals: 1952-2000 | Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. | great history lesson

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Journals: 1952-2000

	Journals: 1952-2000 Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Penguin Press HC, The, 2007 - 928 pages average customer review:based on 28 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Camelot's Court Historian

Arthur Schlesinger died in February of 2007 at the age of 89. In 2006, already ailing, he requested that his sons go through some 6,000 pages of unedited journals in which he had jotted done his daily observations and musings of the last 50 years. The pared down version is still a doorstopper at 894 pages. It is virtually a who's who of politics, literature, art, and academia of the last half century. Schlesinger's journal is reminiscent of Gore Vidal's memoirs and some of Truman Capote's works in that they are written in the chatty upper-crust Manhattan society banter of an earlier time. As in Vidal's and Capote's books, this one also contains lots of name-dropping and juicy bits gossip.

Schlesinger was a man of many talents: He was a great historian, a leading spokesman of liberalism, and he was the in-house intellectual of the Kennedy White House, the role for which he is most well-known. Kennedy was his contemporary and his hero, for he embodied the kind of liberalism that Schlesinger believed in deeply. Contrary to what many believed, Kennedy was very astute politically. Kennedy was quick to grasp political complexities and was able to skillfully turn them to his advantage. Schlesinger's tour of duty at the White House was undoubtedly the defining moment of his career. Although he was already an accomplished historian with important books on Jackson and Roosevelt, he was for the first time actually living and making history. This "proximity to power" remains a constant theme in these journals.

After Kennedy's assassination, Schlesinger stayed for a short time with the Johnson administration. This relationship did not last long since Johnson's temperment and style were antithetical to Schlesinger's. Johnson was a product of Congressional dealmaking, who did not have the vision component that Schlesinger saw as an essential for presidents. Schlesinger claims that Kennedy would not have let the country become mired in Vietnam nor allowed the Democratic Party to succumb the infighting, which paved the way for the election of Richard Nixon.

Richard Nixon, along with Henry Kissinger, are two figures that appear throughout these journals as well as Schlesinger's life. In 1979, Schlesinger was surprised to find out that Nixon had moved in a townhouse in Manhattan a few doors down the row. His observations of Nixon bring back the uptight person we always knew he was. Apparently Nixon sunbathed in his backyard in a shirt and tie. This small detail is emblematic of his entire presidency.

In 1981, Schlesinger accompanied Nixon, Kissinger, Carter, and Ford to the funeral of Anwar Sadat. Kissinger confided that Nixon was still his old self "trying to manipulate everybody and everything, dropping poisonous remarks, and doing his best to set people against each other. Ford had said that, "Sometimes I wish that I had never pardonned that son of [...]."

Schlesinger had a love-hate relationship with Kissinger, for they had known each other since their early days at Harvard. Although they were genial toward each other, Schlesinger was always wary of Kissinger's duplicity. He writes that, "I like Henry very much and respect him, though I cannot rid myself of the fear that he says one thing to me and another to, say, Bill Buckley."

His his later years, Schlesinger continued to live the charmed life in the celebrity circles of Manhattan, always with copious amounts of fine food, martinis, and Cuban cigars. With the financial demands of his social life it is not difficult to see why he was "perennially broke." It is, however, difficult to see how he found the time to produce a big book every few years to pay the bills. This work is a testament to the energy and tenacity of one of our greatest historians and bonvivants.

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great history lesson

Journals is an exceptional book- real time history, insight, gossip/ could not put it down-Schlesinger's family did a great job editing/releasing the information.

Journals 1952-2000 Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this book. There is a lot of history covered in those years (1952-2000) which was interesting and I thoroughly enjoyed the many, many reminisces about Kissinger, Harriman, JFK, RFK, Jackie, Castro, Nixon, etc.! It is a blessing that a great historian like Schlesginer had the foresight to keep his own Journal and I salute his son's for having it produced. I recommend this book especially for anyone having grown up in this time period.

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journals of arthur schlesinger

A literate journey through the second half of the 20th century of american politics with wonderful portraits of virtually all the important players on the world stage who affected our lives.

Poorly edited, surprisingly mean-spirited, yet fascinating in the end

Arthur Schlesinger Jr. was a fixture in American politics for a quarter-century and a passionate observer for at least two decades beyond that. This book is fascinating for anyone interested in the post-World War II history of America. Schlesinger was on a first-name basis with most of the period's giants, and he offers equal doses of inside information, analysis and just plain gossip in his Journals. The sad thing is that this dispassionate historian, this acclaimed author who wrote with such style and insight about Jackson and FDR, was so surprisingly close-minded and sometimes mean-spirited about the leaders of his own period. He was especially myopic about the Kennedys, believing they could do no wrong, and accepting their major mistakes while excoriating other Democrats and Republicans for smaller transgressions. The professor, in fact, comes off as much the snob, hailing only those of either party who were born to wealth and/or attended Ivy League schools. The other drawback with the Journals is that Schlesinger's sons edited the book so poorly. Typos abound, and dozens of names are misspelled, both in the text and in the index. A two-time Pulitzer Prize winner certainly deserved better.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, page 4, 5, 6

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