Matthews revisits themes from his earlier biography, Bobby Kennedy: Raging Spirit (2017), condensing them into 10 brief \u201clessons\u201d meant to show why RFK\u2019s character and ideals remain relevant in a fractured America. The narrative, barely 90 pages, padded with generous white space and followed by a lengthy appendix of Kennedy\u2019s speeches, reads like a quick-to-market companion piece rather than a substantive reassessment. Still, Matthews\u2019 admiration is heartfelt and sincere as he recounts Kennedy\u2019s tenure as attorney general (1961-1964), his belated awakening to civil rights following the brutal attack on his aide, John Seigenthaler, while assisting the Freedom Riders, his pivotal role in the Cuban Missile Crisis, and his tragically brief but galvanizing run for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination. Matthews frames these episodes within a polemic against today\u2019s political dysfunction, and his outrage is unmistakable. He castigates Donald Trump\u2019s authoritarian impulses and the Democrats\u2019 weakness in response, drawing explicit parallels between RFK\u2019s moral courage and today\u2019s lack of leadership. Yet notably, Matthews avoids any mention of Kennedy\u2019s son, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now a prominent and highly controversial figure in the Trump administration\u2014a telling omission in a book otherwise steeped in present-day commentary. Matthews\u2019 reflections are organized around thematic chapters. \u201cHeal the Divide,\u201d \u201cAdmit Your Mistakes,\u201d \u201cUphold Human Rights,\u201d and others use anecdotes and quotations from RFK\u2019s contemporaries\u2014journalists, aides, and historians\u2014that add color but seldom much depth; admiration repeatedly eclipses analysis. Still, his closing reflection captures something of the mystique that endures: \u201cIt is fascinating to me, as an American and as a historian, how Bobby Kennedy\u2019s memory has survived these many years. We see him as a strong leader but also as a vulnerable human being.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Matthews revisits themes from his earlier biography, Bobby Kennedy: Raging Spirit (2017), condensing them into 10 brief \u201clessons\u201d meant to show why RFK\u2019s character and ideals remain relevant in a fractured America. The narrative, barely 90 pages, padded with generous white space and followed by a lengthy appendix of Kennedy\u2019s speeches, reads like a quick-to-market […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4785"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}