The Letters of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

Starred review from November 1, 2013
An insightful, unique view of the multiple Pulitzer-winning liberal icon Arthur Schlesinger Jr. (1917-2007). Serving as their father's editor, Schlesinger's sons--former ABC News documentary writer Andrew (Veritas: Harvard College and the American Experience, 2005, etc.) and former Time contributor and World Policy Journal publisher Stephen (Act of Creation: The Founding of the United Nations, 2003, etc.)--mined more than 60 years of his correspondence and worked through the thousands of letters held at the New York Public Library and other collections. They also drew from his wide-ranging and varied correspondents to produce a worthy follow-up and companion to their Journals: 1952-2000 (2007). The letters selected here provide a clear picture of the multifaceted talents of their father. Schlesinger's credentials provided standing for the advice he addressed to Democratic presidential candidates Walter Mondale in 1984 and Bill Clinton in 1992. He helped them run effective campaigns and noted that they should avoid the temptation to "out-Republican the Republicans." The letters also include exchanges with close friends, like socialite and political supporter Marietta Tree and economist John Kenneth Galbraith, as well as complete strangers. Schlesinger and National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr. corresponded over many years, each welcoming the other's latest publication efforts and disputing the historical significance of such figures as Joseph McCarthy. The editors also do a good job of representing Schlesinger's relations with the Kennedy family over the years, and there are sharply penned rebuttals of critics of the Kennedy brothers' Cuba policy--e.g., Christopher Hitchens and Joseph Califano--in which Schlesinger's attention to detail predominates. Pen portraits of Eleanor Roosevelt, Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and Alger Hiss add to the mix, and the book also includes the author's fears about the consequences of Ronald Reagan's term and the war in Iraq under the George W. Bush administration. A treasure trove that enriches understanding of some of the men and women who helped shape events from World War II to the present.

COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

October 15, 2013
Influential historian and ardent liberal Democrat, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. wrote about 35,000 letters in his lifetime. Seemingly a representative selection, this gleaning from that trove reveals his circle of correspondents, which included intellectuals, Democratic Party politicians, and journalists. Reading Schlesinger's missives, one can follow political events from the 1950s through the 1970s from his perspective. If preserving and advancing the New Deal was Schlesinger's primary public concern, associating himself with Democratic Party presidential candidates was his means; his effusive political advice to Adlai Stevenson, Hubert Humphrey, John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, George McGovern, and Bill Clinton abounds in these pages. Most of Schlesinger's recipients, not as recognizable today, require brief footnotes that the editors provide. Schlesinger also wrote to his family, personal friends, and scholars who sought his viewpoint on the history he had witnessed. In an epistolary style that was newsy and gossipy, generous and caustic, this volume (combined with Journals, 19522000, 2007) displays the private side of theSchlesinger that the history-reading public knows from his works on Andrew Jackson and Franklin Roosevelt, which remain landmarks on their subjects. A must for the American history collection.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

May 1, 2013

Celebrated historian and special assistant to President Kennedy, Schlesinger watched the 20th century from a ringside seat and wrote about it to perfection. These letters, most never published, should reveal fascinating unedited truths.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.