A historian at the University of Notre Dame Australia has scooped her American colleagues with a “micro-history” of the Kennedy family. Source: The Catholic Weekly.
At the centre of The Kennedys at Cape Cod, 1944: The Summer That Changed Everything is the tragic moment when patriarch Joe, matriarch Rose and their eight children learned that the oldest sibling, Joe Jr, had been killed in a World War II bombing mission.
Thereafter, the aspirations of the fiercely ambitious father centred on his son Jack, who eventually became the 35th president of the United States, the youngest and the first Catholic president.
Associate Professor Leigh Straw launched the book in Boston, Washington DC, and Hyannis, the location of the Kennedy family home on Cape Cod. It has been endorsed by leading Kennedy scholars.
In the summer of 1944, the Allies had successfully invaded Normandy, marking the beginning of the end for the Nazi regime. Joe Jr was entitled to return home after surviving 25 bombing missions.
Instead, he volunteered for a 26th mission, but the plane exploded killing him and his co-pilot.
The book gives an insight into the Kennedy family before they became the larger-than-life, heroic and tragic figures in history books and popular culture.
“I’ve been interested in the Kennedys since I was a teenager and have spent years researching them,” Professor Straw said.
“While my other books have been on Australian crime history (and crime biographies), this book has always been brewing away in my mind.”
Sixty years after the assassination of JFK, many Americans are still besotted with the Kennedys. Why?
“Few American families are as iconic – or as scrutinised – as the Kennedys,” Professor Straw said. “From the ‘Camelot’ era of the 1960s to the countless books and documentaries that followed, their story is legendary.
“While ‘Camelot’ has been challenged in recent decades in terms of being a part of a constructed public mythology, the Kennedys continue to fascinate people around the world because of the immense heights to which they rose in the political world but also the awful tragedies experienced across generations.
“Their story is also an inspiring one in terms of going from poor Irish Catholic origins in Boston (after fleeing the Irish Famine in the late 1840s) all the way to the White House.”
FULL STORY
A blend of nostalgia and tragedy in a history of the Kennedys (By Michael Cook, The Catholic Weekly)
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Notre Dame historian offers new insight into Kennedy family (UNDA)
