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An Unfinished Life
- John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963
- Narrated by: Richard McGonagle
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
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Publisher's summary
Here is the gripping story of Jack's transformation from an awkward speaker into a brilliant politician with irresistible charm. The audiobook carries us from Jack's work as a senator from Massachusetts, through the fiercely contested 1960 campaign against Nixon, and takes us on to the White House itself.
An Unfinished Life also discloses for the very first time that Kennedy was far sicker than we ever knew. While laboring to present an image of robust good health, Kennedy was secretly in and out of hospitals through-out his life, so ill that he was administered last rites on several different occasions. Here is a vivid portrait of a man who, because he knew how close he was to death, lived as much as he could - sometimes hurting others in the process.
Never shying away from Kennedy's weaknesses, Dallek also brilliantly explores his strengths. The result is a portrait of a bold, brave, human Kennedy, once again a hero.
Critic reviews
"Sets the historical record straight...pitch-perfect prose...hands-down the best biography of JFK...a truly remarkable achievement." (Douglas Brinkley, author of The Unfinished Presidency)
"In this riveting tour de force...Dallek delivers what will most assuredly become the benchmark JFK biography for this generation...[He] is to be thanked for providing this thoroughly researched, well-sourced, responsible and readable biography that has for so long been wanting in Kennedy scholarship." (Publishers Weekly)
"...riveting and well-documented biography." (New Yorker)
"Richard McGonagle brings the president to life, mimicking the famous accents so well that his renditions of Kennedy speeches compare favorably to Kennedy's own renderings." (AudioFile)
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Story
By the time of his assassination in 1963, John F. Kennedy stood at the helm of the greatest power the world had ever seen, a booming American nation that he had steered through some of the most perilous diplomatic standoffs of the Cold War. Born in 1917 to a striving Irish American family that had become among Boston’s wealthiest, Kennedy knew political ambition from an early age, and his meteoric rise to become the youngest elected president cemented his status as one of the most mythologized figures in American history.
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Excellent Portrait of JFK & His Times
- By John David on 12-14-20
By: Fredrik Logevall
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Incomparable Grace
- JFK in the Presidency
- By: Mark K. Updegrove
- Narrated by: Robin Miles, Mark K. Updegrove
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Nearly sixty years after his death, JFK still holds an outsize place in the American imagination. While Baby Boomers remember his dazzling presence as president, millennials more likely know him from advertisements for Omega watches or Ray Ban sunglasses. Yet his years in office were marked by more than his style and elegance. His presidency is a story of a fledgling leader forced to meet unprecedented challenges, and to rise above missteps to lead his nation into a new and hopeful era.
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Even though we all know the story and have heard it 100 times it never gets old
- By Lenny on 06-05-22
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Franklin D. Roosevelt
- A Political Life
- By: Robert Dallek
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 29 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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In an era of such great national divisiveness, there could be no more timely biography of one of our greatest presidents than one that focuses on his unparalleled political ability as a uniter and consensus maker. Robert Dallek's Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life takes a fresh look at the many compelling questions that have attracted all his biographers: how did a man who came from so privileged a background become the greatest presidential champion of the country's needy?
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Not bad but,
- By Christopher on 12-20-17
By: Robert Dallek
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Richard Nixon
- The Life
- By: John A. Farrell
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 28 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Richard Nixon opens with young navy lieutenant "Nick" Nixon returning from the Pacific and setting his cap at Congress, an idealistic dreamer seeking to build a better world. Yet amid the turns of that now legendary 1946 campaign, Nixon's finer attributes quickly gave way to unapologetic ruthlessness. It is a stunning overture to John A. Farrell's magisterial portrait of a man who embodied postwar American cynicism.
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Well balanced and proportioned
- By Tad Davis on 06-04-17
By: John A. Farrell
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Camelot's Court
- Inside the Kennedy White House
- By: Robert Dallek
- Narrated by: James Lurie
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Fifty years after John F. Kennedy's assassination, presidential historian Robert Dallek, whom The New York Times calls "Kennedy's leading biographer", delivers a riveting new portrait of this president and his inner circle of advisors, their rivalries, personality clashes, and political battles. In Camelot's Court, Dallek analyzes the brain trust whose contributions to the successes and failures of Kennedy's administration - including the Bay of Pigs, civil rights, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Vietnam - were indelible.
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Well Researched but Critically Flawed
- By brent lloyd on 02-08-22
By: Robert Dallek
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The Kennedy Half Century
- The Presidency, Assassination, and Lasting Legacy of John F. Kennedy
- By: Larry J. Sabato
- Narrated by: Chris Kayser
- Length: 24 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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John F. Kennedy died half a century ago - yet because of his extraordinary promise and untimely death, his star still resonates strongly. On the anniversary of his assassination, celebrated political scientist and analyst Larry J. Sabato - himself a teenager in the early 1960s and inspired by JFK and his presidency - explores the fascinating and powerful influence he has had over five decades on the media, the general public, and especially on each of his nine presidential successors.
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Job Well Done
- By Kathy on 08-12-14
By: Larry J. Sabato
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FDR
- By: Jean Edward Smith
- Narrated by: Marc Cashman
- Length: 32 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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One of today's premier biographers, Jean Edward Smith, has written a modern, comprehensive, indeed ultimate book on the epic life of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This is a portrait painted in broad strokes and fine details. We see how Roosevelt's restless energy, fierce intellect, personal magnetism, and ability to project effortless grace permitted him to master countless challenges throughout his life. Smith recounts FDR's personal battles and also tackles head-on and in depth the numerous failures and miscues of Roosevelt's political career.
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Interesting but flawed
- By Mike From Mesa on 09-15-13
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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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An Ordinary Man
- The Surprising Life and Historic Presidency of Gerald R. Ford
- By: Richard Norton Smith
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 36 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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From the preeminent presidential scholar and acclaimed biographer of historical figures including George Washington, Herbert Hoover, and Nelson Rockefeller comes this eye-opening life of Gerald R. Ford, whose presidency arguably set the course for post-liberal America and a post-Cold War world.
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Must-read Polemic
- By allison h eid on 10-17-23
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A Thousand Days
- John F. Kennedy in the White House
- By: Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 44 hrs
- Unabridged
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Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. served as special assistant to President John F. Kennedy throughout his presidency—from the long and grueling campaign to Kennedy's tragic and unexpected assassination by Lee Harvey Oswald. In A Thousand Days, Schlesinger combines intimate knowledge as one of President Kennedy's inner circle with sweeping research and historic context to provide a look at one of the most legendary presidential administrations in American history.
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His Very Best
- Jimmy Carter, a Life
- By: Jonathan Alter
- Narrated by: Michael Boatman
- Length: 31 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Growing up in one of the meanest counties in the Jim Crow South, Carter is the only American president who essentially lived in three centuries: his early life on the farm in the 1920s without electricity or running water might as well have been in the nineteenth; his presidency put him at the center of major events in the twentieth; and his efforts on conflict resolution and global health set him on the cutting edge of the challenges of the 21st.
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Unbiased biography of a complex president
- By P Willis on 10-08-20
By: Jonathan Alter
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Eisenhower in War and Peace
- By: Jean Edward Smith
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 28 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Author of the best-seller FDR, Jean Edward Smith is a master of the presidential biography. Setting his sights on Dwight D. Eisenhower, Smith delivers a rich account of Eisenhower’s life using previously untapped primary sources. From the military service in WWII that launched his career to the shrewd political decisions that kept America out of wars with the Soviet Union and China, Smith reveals a man who never faltered in his dedication to serving America, whether in times of war or peace.
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Good, although biased, biography
- By Mike From Mesa on 10-15-12
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The Jazz Age President
- Defending Warren G. Harding
- By: Ryan S. Walters
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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He's the butt of political jokes, frequently subjected to ridicule, and almost never absent a "Worst Presidents" list where he most often ends up at the bottom. Historians have labeled him the "Worst President Ever," "Dead Last," "Unfit," and "Incompetent," to name but a few. Many contemporaries were equally cruel. H. L. Mencken called him a "nitwit." To Alice Roosevelt Longworth, he was a "slob."
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Excellent clarification
- By Scott J. Jones MD on 08-03-22
By: Ryan S. Walters
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Destiny and Power
- The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush
- By: Jon Meacham
- Narrated by: Paul Michael
- Length: 25 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawing on President Bush’s personal diaries, on the diaries of his wife, Barbara, and on extraordinary access to the 41st president and his family, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham paints an intimate and surprising portrait of an intensely private man who led the nation through tumultuous times.
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Fair and insightful
- By Jean on 12-02-15
By: Jon Meacham
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The JFK Conspiracy
- The Secret Plot to Kill Kennedy—and Why It Failed
- By: Brad Meltzer, Josh Mensch
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 12 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Kennedy, the thirty-fifth president of the United States, is often ranked among Americans’ most well-liked presidents. Yet what most Americans don’t know is that JFK’s historic presidency almost ended before it began—at the hands of a disgruntled sociopathic loner armed with dynamite. On December 11, 1960, shortly after Kennedy’s election and before his inauguration, a retired postal worker named Richard Pavlick waited in his car—a parked Buick—on a quiet street in Palm Beach, Florida.
By: Brad Meltzer, and others
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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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Wilson
- By: A. Scott Berg
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb
- Length: 32 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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A hundred years after his inauguration, Woodrow Wilson still stands as one of the most influential figures of the 20th century, and one of the most enigmatic. And now, after more than a decade of research and writing, Pulitzer Prize-winning author A. Scott Berg has completed Wilson - the most personal and penetrating biography ever written about the 28th President. This is not just Wilson the icon - but Wilson the man.
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Well Written & Narrated But Too Much Hero Worship
- By Nostromo on 11-17-13
By: A. Scott Berg
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The Trials of Harry S. Truman
- The Extraordinary Presidency of an Ordinary Man, 1945-1953
- By: Jeffrey Frank
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 17 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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The nearly eight years of Harry Truman’s presidency—among the most turbulent in American history—were marked by victory in the wars against Germany and Japan; the first use of an atomic bomb and the development of far deadlier weapons; the start of the Cold War and the creation of the NATO alliance; the Marshall Plan to rebuild the wreckage of postwar Europe; the Red Scare; and the fateful decision to commit troops to fight a costly “limited war” in Korea.
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Excellent illuminating work
- By Peter Hildebrandt on 06-30-22
By: Jeffrey Frank
What listeners say about An Unfinished Life
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Blueliner
- 11-29-23
Great listen
I’m a sucker for Kennedy info and this was a solid balance of facts and storytelling. A nice walk through a brief but obviously impactful life. I found myself wondering how my life (Born in’85) would be different if things went differently for this family in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s.
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- Jeff
- 01-23-16
Great starter to Kennedy for me
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
I would definitely recommend if you wish to gain an unbiased timeline on JFK
Have you listened to any of Richard McGonagle’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I enjoyed the reading
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- Amazon Customer
- 08-11-22
A mediocre telling
The narration was good, except for the between-chapter musical interludes, which seemed silly, considering the content. I was disappointed in a lack of more personal history leading up to the presidency. I just didn't learn much than I already knew, though the detail on his handling of the Cuban crises was interesting.
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- jason leclerc
- 05-16-19
good but not great book kinda like Kennedy himself
good book to listen to but the voice switching to emulate accents and the music between chapters was a little much
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- royphotog
- 09-02-11
Just nthe facts
As some other reviewers said, this narrative is just the facts, the details of Kennedy's political carrier for the most part, with about half devoted to his presidential years. Good but not great. Narrator Richard McGonagle is very good in his narration and doing Kennedy's Boston accent without going over the top, He was better then the book was.
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- Jon David Schein
- 09-02-15
greatly enhanced my knowledge of his story!
greatly enhanced my all around knowledge of JFK, his upbringing, and his vision for America and why he might have been killed for standing FOR Americans, in the warpath to usurp our natural liberties.
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- Amazon Customer
- 06-29-18
boring
narrator excellent, story dragged. I did like some of the private items. kind of boring
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Overall
- Sean
- 01-19-04
A Great Biography
Dallek was my professor at UCLA and I read the book before listening to the audo - a great book, readable and compelling. Dallek illuminates how JFK's illnesses were a significant force in shaping his character for the better and for the worse. He documents in great detail some of the most frightening moments in the cold war, political machinations and intrigue, the early days of the civil rights movements and how JFK and the political establishment reacted to this new reality. There is just so much here - there are passages that will have people hitting "rewind" to play again. A great book!
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6 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Robert
- 06-03-04
Why do the great people die young
What an amazing life. What an amazing person. The detail of JFk's life will educate, and inspire you. Learn not well publised facts about his youth, his sickness and disabilities. How he approached the negotiating table with russian leaders. Off coarse the insight to the missle crisis and much, much more.
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- Grant Wentworth
- 02-07-15
A little too emphasis on his health
Would you consider the audio edition of An Unfinished Life to be better than the print version?
I never read the book
What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?
Nothing really compelling
What about Richard McGonagle’s performance did you like?
He stresses his S's and it is annoying as hell
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
No
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