The Kennedys: The Lives and Legacies of John, Jackie, Robert, and Ted Kennedy

*Includes pictures of the Kennedys and important people, places, and events in their lives.
*Includes an introduction for each of the 4.
*Includes a Table of Contents

Over the last 50 years, the name Kennedy has become the most famous one in America, with the Kennedy brothers coming to political power during the mid-20th century, while John's beautiful wife Jackie became a political wife and First Lady unlike any the nation had ever witnessed. In time, the Kennedys forged a political dynasty, leaving a lasting legacy in American politics that endures to this day.

In many ways, John Fitzgerald Kennedy and his young family were the perfect embodiment of the ‘60s. The decade began with a sense of idealism, personified by the attractive Kennedy, his beautiful and fashionable wife Jackie, and his young children. Months into his presidency, Kennedy exhorted the country to reach for the stars, calling upon the nation to send a man to the Moon and back by the end of the decade. In 1961, Kennedy made it seem like anything was possible, and Americans were eager to believe him. The Kennedy years were fondly and famously labeled “Camelot,” suggesting an almost mythical quality about the young President and his family. 

The famous label came from John’s fashionable and beautiful wife, Jackie, whose elegance and grace made her the most popular woman in the world. Her popularity threatened to eclipse even her husband’s, who famously quipped on one presidential trip to France that he was “the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris.” Americans were fascinated by the young First Lady’s style, and the manner in which she glamorously positioned both the First Family and the White House in those years, and Jackie remains one of the country’s most popular First Ladies. 

Robert Francis Kennedy (1925–1968) is the quintessential middle brother among the Kennedys, eclipsed in life while working in his brother John’s administration, eclipsed in death both by his older brother’s assassination and his younger brother’s long, influential career in the Senate as a liberal lion. And yet, the politics of the 1960s and the ultimate legacy of the Kennedys, including the “Kennedy Curse”, would have been incomplete without Bobby’s place in the narrative. Today, unfortunately, Bobby is best remembered for his assassination, the way in which it helped perpetuate the “Kennedy Curse”, and the fact that his political promise, including potentially becoming president in 1968, was never fulfilled. 

Ted may not have been the center of attention in the Kennedy family then or now, but he had the same charisma and skills of his older brothers, as well as the same controversial vices. And as fate would have it, Ted’s political legacy may have eclipsed them all. His brothers were victims of two of the country’s most tragic assassinations, two other siblings died in plane crashes, and he would have to eulogize nephews. But Ted had the extra gift of length of years, surviving his encounter with the “Kennedy Curse”, a 1964 plane crash that severely injured and nearly killed him. Although controversy ensured Ted would never be president, he spent nearly half a century in the U.S. Senate, forging a legacy that earned him the nickname “The Lion of the Senate”. Indeed, in the course of becoming the 4th longest serving Senator in American history, Ted became the patriarch of both the Kennedy family and the Democratic Party, as well as one of the most forceful and outspoken advocates of progressivism.

The Kennedys tells the story of John, Jackie, Robert, and Ted, weaving their lives and legacies together into one narrative. Along with pictures of the Kennedy family and important people, places, and events in their lives, you will learn about the Kennedys like you never have before, in no time at all.