The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America
Written by Thurston Clarke
Narrated by Pete Larkin
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
Clarke's The Last Campaign is the definitive account of Robert Kennedy's exhilarating and tragic 1968 campaign for president-and a revelatory history that is especially resonant now.
Thurston Clarke
Thurston Clarke has written a dozen widely acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction, including several New York Times Notable Books. His Pearl Harbor Ghosts was the basis of a CBS documentary, and his bestselling Lost Hero, a biography of Raoul Wallenberg, was made into an award-winning NBC miniseries. His articles have appeared in Vanity Fair, The New York Times, The Washington Post and many other publications. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and other awards and lives with his wife and three daughters in upstate New York.
Related to The Last Campaign
Related audiobooks
Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All This Marvelous Potential: Robert Kennedy's 1968 Tour of Appalachia Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Camelot's Court: Inside the Kennedy White House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51960: LBJ vs. JFK vs. Nixon--The Epic Campaign That Forged Three Presidencies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5LBJ's 1968: Power, Politics, and the Presidency in America's Year of Upheaval Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5JFK: A Vision for America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Road to Camelot: Inside JFK's Five-Year Campaign Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Making of the President 1960 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Liberal Republican: An Insider's Perspective on Nixon's Surprising Social Policy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCampaign of the Century: Kennedy, Nixon, and the Election of 1960 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOne Man Against the World: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Two Americans: Truman, Eisenhower, and a Dangerous World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5End of Days: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ask Not: The Inauguration of John F. Kennedy and the Speech That Changed America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Washington: The Making of the American Capital Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The First Kennedys: The Humble Roots of an American Dynasty Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Washington's Farewell: The Founding Father's Warning to Future Generations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789-1989 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Profiles in Courage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Heritage History of the Presidents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Kennedys in the World: How Jack, Bobby, and Ted Remade America's Empire Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe President and the Assassin: McKinley, Terror, and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Civil War by Other Means: America's Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Abraham Lincoln: A Life 1860-1861: An Election Victory, Threats of Secession, and Appointing a Cabinet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
United States History For You
Lies My Teacher Told Me: 2nd Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Witches: The Horror of Salem, Massachusetts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government's Search for Alien Life Here—and Out There Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Charlie Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of September 11, 2001 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/51776 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Land of Delusion: Out on the edge with the crackpots and conspiracy-mongers remaking our shared reality Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Untold History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dragonfire: Four Days That (Almost) Changed America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Letter from Birmingham Jail Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lafayette in the Somewhat United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and A Legacy of Rage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Valiant Women: The Extraordinary American Servicewomen Who Helped Win World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Up From Slavery Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Last Campaign
12 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As a person who has heard much about this tumultuous era in America, but was not alive during the events, Thurston Clarke provided an informative backdrop to the American political landscape in 1968. Asides, such as the mention of the heavy weight on Superdelegates, was particularly interesting and relevant in 2008. A closeness to the campaign exists throughout the work to the point where the reader feels as though he is one of those many who listened to Kennedy's speeches or rode along as a fellow political journalist during those 82 days. Kennedy's inspiration, toughness to opponents (and supporters) and overwhelming compassion are translated well by Clarke. The writing itself; however, leaves something to be desired as Clarke becomes quite repetitive throughout, utilizing the same source material (and the same quotes) and the final product contains a number of grammatical/spelling errors.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One of the best books on RFK, focusing on the last 82 days of his life. You really get a sense of the intensity of the campaign and how great a president he would have been.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This 2008 book tells of Bobby Kennedy's 82 days between the time he announced his candidacy on March 18, 1968, and the time he was assassinated in June 1968. There was little in the book I did not recall, since I was active in that campaign. The author assumes Bobby would have won the nomination and he may be right, but at the time, even after he won the primary in California, I knew there were still formidable hurdles before he could be nominated. It was an exciting and eventually very sad time and this book enabled me to relive that time. The book is not excessively pro-Bobby but does show much of the fervor which enlivened those tense and historic days.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Out of Jack's ShadowA stirring recount of the final days in the life of Bobby Kennedy. 1968 was one of those years that defined a generation and Bobby Kennedy was one of the reasons why and it wasn't just because of his assassination. In a time of severe crisis, Bobby was like a beacon of hope. A man who could bridge the divide between rich and poor, between black and white. He was like a rock star and campaigned with reckless abandon often thrusting himself into the clutches of the crowd."What did he have that he could do this to people?" Kennedy was moved by the suffering of others he saw around the country, around the world. A touch of the hand, a smile, the tears in his eyes. You could just feel the compassion, the desire to improve his fellow man. From the outset, Kennedy was running a very different kind of a campaign. As David Wise wrote in the Saturday Evening Post in March 24, 1968: "We take the position that the old rules don't apply. America is in flux, everything is changing. The old way of delegate hunting doesn't apply. We're going to the people." Thurston Clarke does an admirable job retracing Kennedy's campaign rightly capturing the emotion of each moment in time. Clarke focuses most of his chapters covering Kennedy during the Indiana primary but also covers Oregon and finally California. In the great tragedies of life, Kennedy's most triumphant moment was also the fatal one. It was indeed ominous that Kennedy often cited his favorite poetry from the great Greek tragedies.We could play what ifs all we want, but there's no doubt that Kennedy would've ensured that LBJ's Great Society was implemented to a full and logical conclusion. The fulfillment of the promise of "permanent prosperity" which FDR had begun. On the other hand, there is no conclusive evidence that Bobby would've beaten Nixon. After all, the backlash vote was a large one and the masterful politician in Nixon captured it easily through what we commonly refer to now as the silent majority.Love him or hate him, the guy with the moptop was one passionate guy. As his brother Ted so famously eulogized, Bobby was a good and decent man "who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it". In the campaign year of 2008, this is really a great read that will hopefully restore your faith in politics.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5If you were wondering what ever happened to the missing Fifth Gospel, your search is over. “The Last Campaign,” a mix of commentary about and quotations by Robert F. Kennedy, is a hagiographic account of RFK’s last 82 days that channels the love affair with the Kennedy Family characterizing the Sixties.In spite of its star-struck orientation, however, the book is worth reading if the only RFK you know is the “rabid ferret” RFK of the early 1960’s. The contention promulgated in this book is that the Bobby of 1968 was a different man – epiphanized, if you will, by visits to poor families in Cleveland, Mississippi and Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. As the campaign progresses, Bobby seems more and more obsessed with ceasing foreign entanglements and investing the money at home, to cure poverty and promote equal rights. Obviously this is not the same Bobby as the one that served in the JFK and LBJ administrations. But after reading this book, I became convinced that RFK - at the very least - began responding to all the reinforcement he got by being the only white politician to promise help for Blacks, Chicanos, and Native Americans. I also give him credit for not changing his campaign speeches to pander to his varied audiences, a practice now distressingly common.How sincere was he? It’s hard to tell from this book. How much of his support was because he was a Kennedy? It sounds like a great deal of it was, even though this author tries hard to establish Bobby as a saint in his own right.The Kennedys lived a charmed existence, while they lived. They had the money to live life to the fullest, and to evoke, as Jackie Kennedy observed so aptly, the halcyon days of Camelot. The political reality, however, was not as golden. Histories of the CIA demonstrate that the Kennedy brothers were very much taken by dirty tricks and assassinations; in fact, there is considerable evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald was only payback for the many attempts on Castro’s life engineered by Bobby. The Kennedys also did not have a stellar record on Civil Rights; Jack paid political debts by nominating white racists to the Southern judiciary; and Bobby authorized the attempted destruction of Martin Luther King, Jr. by the FBI. So, did Bobby genuinely do a 360 and become the champion of black Americans? This book doesn’t provide the answer. On the other hand, Bobby’s speeches are masterful, inspiring, and radical by today’s standards. If you can access his speeches in another venue, by all means do so. If not, this book is a start.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America by Thurston Clarke is an excellent book. It is an inspiring book, a heart warming and tragic book, and a book that filled my heart with hope and sorrow. I wish we had a Bobby Kennedy right now that could reach out and pull people together like he could. Someone that could call for peace and coming together rather than shattering the populace. Someone that is honest and caring, that wants the poor and middle class to have more, do better, to achieve higher, and for us all to care for each other. Dreams, he had them. We don't have dreams now...we have a nightmare come true.