The Family

The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty

De: Kitty Kelley

Narrado por: Kitty Kelley

They have wielded enormous financial power and dominated world politics for more than half a century. They have been appointed to positions of great power and have been elected as governors, congressmen, senators and presidents. They have shaped our past and, with our country at war under the leadership of their number one son, they are, more critically than ever, shaping our future.

As the Bush family has risen to dominance, so too they have been master orchestrators of their own public image, acting and operating under the shield of privacy their money and status have always afforded them. Until now.

Number One bestselling author and investigative biographer Kitty Kelley has closely examined the lives of Jacqueline Onassis, Nancy Reagan, Frank Sinatra, and the British Royal family. Now the First Lady of unauthorized biography reckons with the first family of the United States—and the result is at once a rich and shocking history and a very human portrait of the world’s most powerful dynasty.

An important polemic on wealth, power, and class in America, The Family is rich in texture, probing in its psychological insight, revealing in its political and financial detail, and stunning in the patterns that emerge and expose the Bush dynasty as it has never before been exposed. Ms. Kelley takes us back to the origins of the family fortune in the Ohio steel industry at the turn of the last century, through the oil deals and international business associations that have maintained and increased their wealth over the past hundred years. The book leads us through Prescott Bush’s first entrée into government at the state level in 1950s’ Connecticut, to George Herbert Walker Bush’s long and winding road to the White House, to his son’s quick sweep into the same office. Along the way, we see the complex relationships the Bushes have had with the giants of the century—Eisenhower, Nixon, Joseph McCarthy, Kissinger, Reagan, Clinton—as well as the often ruthless methods used to realize their goals.

Perhaps most impressive—and surprising—is the way the book delves behind the obsessively protected public image into the family’s intimate private lives: the matriarchs, the mistresses, the marriages, the divorces, the jealousies, the hypocrisies, the golden children, and the black sheep.

At a crucial point in American history, Kitty Kelley is the one person to finally tell all about the family that has, perhaps more than any other, defined our role in the modern world. This is the book the Bushes don’t want you to read. This is The Family.©2004 Kitty Kelley; (P)2004 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

Reseñas de la Crítica

"This is a story of power, sex and betrayal--but mostly of power." –The New York Times Book Review"A thoroughly researched piece of work. Ms. Kelley clearly devoured and digested the extant literature on the family." –The New York Times"Kelley's account of the rise and fall of the Bush family is both inspirational and cautionary. She convincingly shows that good looks, energy, athleticism, ambition, felicitous marriages and social networking can compensate for intellectual ordinariness." –The Washington Post Book World"The Family . . . has left few stones unturned. . . . Kelley has brought new information to bear on a family that, for better or worse, deserves her kind of royal treatment." –The New York Times Book Review"A sweeping indictment of the mind-set of the [Bush] family, that they grew up feeling that this was their due." –Garry Trudeau, The Charlie Rose Show"Despite the best efforts of the media, the public is gaining insight into their president as the facts leak out and as Kitty Kelley's The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty, tops the sales chart." –Newsday"Kelley nails the evidence and, although the secretive Bush family will not like it, demonstrates beyond doubt what the American press dared not print." –The Guardian

An Independent's Perspective

Yes, Kitty is not famous for her journalistic integrity. However, this book does offer much verifiable information that you simply do not see in the mainstream press. I suspect my liberal friends will gleefully celebrate the expose of the sordid lives and deeds of the Bush family while my die-hard right-wingers will dismiss everything as "more of the liberal conspiracy." As an Independent, I believe the book gives an interesting insight into one of the most influencial families of our Nation and challenges one to contemplate whether Americans really live in a Democracy or whether perhaps we really live in a weak Aristocracy.

Conjecture with no sources.

If I would have written information like this in my journalism class I would have been expelled. I found her ability to walk the tightrope of slander and libel quite impressive though. If your a bush-hater you'll probably love this one... However my sense says that this is miscategorized, should be under fiction.

Finally, Kelley exposes the truth!

OMG! If any one of the numerous facts shared by Mrs. Kelley is true, I am so thankful for having stuck to my instinct on the Bush Family. From outright racism and classism to drug abuse, adultery and scandal, the Bush Family exposes the truth behind the "image" that the Bush Family so eagerly projects. I only wish that many of the brave souls that bought weed from Laura Bush, snorted cocaine with George W. at Camp David, and had extramarital affairs with George 41 would speak up.

Um, can someone get her some coffee

I think Kitty Kelley may have a substance abuse prob herself. She’s slower than Bush Sr.’s bowel movements.