Joe Kennedy grew up a privileged child of East Boston aristocracy. Everybody knew who he was, everybody knew who his family was. He was a sports star, he was handsome, articulate ... His greatest tragedy was not making the varsity [Harvard] baseball team because he was too slow. It was only when he graduates from Harvard that he begins to understand what it means to be an Irish Catholic from East Boston, whose father is a local ward leader. He wants to go into banking or finance. He cannot get a job. Cannot get an interview. His friends, who happen to be Protestant with the same degree that he has and not as good a head for numbers as he has, they have no problem getting jobs. ... So it's at that moment in 1912 that he realizes — really for the first time — that there are going to be a lot of doors closed to him, and only because he is Irish Catholic in Boston." I know, I know, this is not a gossip book and makes no claim to be. But this part of the Kennedy legend shouldn't have been nearly ignored.

Joseph Kennedy had wanted to exert his influence in a positive way, and Rosemary aside, he did. His children entered public service with verve and single-mindedness because that was what he raised them to do. "He told [his children] over and over again, 'I'm making all this money so you don't have to make money, so that you can go into public service,' " Nasaw tells Fresh Air's Dave Davies.DAVID NASAW: He was very well-known. His - he happened to be extraordinarily photogenic. He had nine photogenic children. He loved to hobnob with the press. He was a walking soundbite, he'd give them whatever they wanted. So he was plastered all over the place. Everybody knew who this man was from, you know, 1932, when he helped campaign - when he campaigned for Roosevelt, for the rest of his life.

And he said over and over again, and he put it in his book, he said this man, Franklin Roosevelt, is not a communist, is not a socialist, is not a radical. He is saving capitalism. And you should support him. And he laid out the facts and figures. The Patriarch is a story not only of one of the twentieth century’s wealthiest and most powerful Americans, but also of the family he raised and the children who completed the journey he had begun. Of the many roles Kennedy held, that of father was most dear to him. The tragedies that befell his family marked his final years with unspeakable suffering.

Roosevelt, in a rather disastrous move, appointed Kennedy as ambassador to England. Perhaps one reason for this was Kennedy’s growing Presidential aspirations – so better to locate him a few thousand miles away. Whereas Kennedy excelled in the business world he never comprehended what it took to be a good politician. He could never keep his big mouth shut. He was not only for appeasement with Germany and Italy, but repeatedly urged France and England to meekly surrender to Germany. After the war started this strikes one as not only defeatist, but traitorous. Roosevelt, much to Kennedy’s anger, started to circumvent his ambassador in communicating to England. For instance, among other methods, he started a secret correspondence with Churchill at the time that he was Naval Minister, under Chamberlain, at war’s onset. In this pioneering new work, celebrated historian David Nasaw examines the life of Joseph P. Kennedy, the founder of the twentieth century’s most famous political dynasty. Drawing on never-before-published materials from archives on three continents and interviews with Kennedy family members and friends, Nasaw tells the story of a man who participated in the major events of his times: the booms and busts, the Depression and the New Deal, two world wars and the Cold War, and the birth of the New Frontier. In studying Kennedy’s life, we relive the history of the American century.

Mari Rich, Olivia J. Smith, and Clifford Thompson, eds., World Authors, 1995–2000 (H.W. Wilson, 2003):592. Kennedy offered unquestioning support for Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement policies. In fact, he actually expressed disappointment that the Germans did not prevail in the Battle of Britain because he felt it only delayed Hitler’s ultimate victory. He resigned in December 1940, his views no longer respected, and never again entered public service. Even after the war, however, he persisted in his Cassandra-like isolationism, opposing the creation of NATO and the Marshall Plan. The most interesting part was his stint as Ambassador to the Court of St. James in the 1930s. Friends and acquaintances told him he was much too opinionated to be a diplomat, but he didn't listen. Consequently, he was tarred as an appeaser, an isolationist, and just plain "defeatist" because he was against the U.S. going to war to help England who he believed could not possibly beat Germany. Later, this was used to brand him as pro-Hitler which was not the case.Nasaw writes that he was approached by the Kennedy family to write about Joe. Hersh, himself a Kennedy family intimate, says of Bobby and J. Edgar in the book's Foreword that "if honestly done, it was likely to scorch out sources and friends whom I have cherished since the middle sixties". I had a hard time deciding on a rating because despite learning more about him, I also felt like I didn't really get to know him. Overall I enjoyed it and I'm happy that the author didn't try to make Joe Kennedy more likable. He was a horrible person and this book just pointed out even more reasons to dislike this man.