Book Review: The Death of a President: November 20 – November 25, 1963 by William Manchester

About:

The Death of a President: November 20 – November 25, 1963 by William Manchester accounts in minute detail the five days when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Mr. Manchester, a published historian, was asked by the Kennedy family to write this book with unprecedented access to interviews, documents, and more.

• 736 pages
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Back Bay Books
• Language :‎ English
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0316370711

My rating for The Death of a President – 5
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Thoughts:

This is a fantastic book, which tells in engrossing narrative the great American tragedy through impeccable research. The author delivers a magnificent, and riveting account of the five days which changed the nation.

If this wasn’t a history book, I would have thought that The Death of a President by William Manchester is a Shakespearean tragedy.

• President Kennedy – a charismatic king going to the hub of American fascism (Dallas), becoming a legend in a second.
• Jackie Kennedy – the widow, the North Star and moral compass. A representative of glamour, suffering and sorrow.
• Lyndon Johnson – the second in command, being thrusted in an instant from  “the most insignificant office that ever the Invention of man contrived or his Imagination conceived”, to unhindered power. Maneuvering and intriguing to consolidate his rule.
• Lee Harvey Oswald – the lone assassin who has been demoted from a central character to a bit player in a drama of his own doing.

Other agencies play supportive roles in this tragedy. The press, the turf wars between government agencies, and the publicity hounds who at times seem to be there for comic relief no man could conceive in fiction.

At times, Mr. Manchester’s adulation of President and Mrs. Kennedy is naïve. However, the book, as a whole, is a superb and authoritative narrative, an account of almost minute-by-minute detail of these five days, as well as the impact on the nation as a whole.

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More Books by William Manchester*

Zohar — Man of la Book
Dis­claimer: I bought this book
*Ama­zon links point to an affil­i­ate account, the money is usually spent on books