The Family : The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty - Softcover

Kelley, Kitty

3.61

739 ratings by Goodreads

9780593048917: The Family : The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593048911 ISBN 13: 9780593048917

Publisher: Doubleday, 2004

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For the first time, the most secretive and powerful dynasty in American history has all of its secrets revealed. This is the book the Bush family do not want you to read. Over the past one hundred years, the Bush family have made millions of dollars, dominated the US government, and created a legacy unlike any other American family. Prescott Bush was a two-time Senator from Connecticut who had the ear of Dwight D. Eisenhower and tangled with Joe McCarthy. His son, George H.W. was a congressman, the head of the CIA, Vice-President under Ronald Reagan and then the 41st President of the United States. One of his sons, Jeb, is governor of Florida and almost certainly a future presidential candidate. The eldest son, George W., is the 43rd president - possibly the most polarizing and controversial head of state in American history. How did these men - backed and often controlled by strong and single-minded women - rise to power? How did they maneuver their way from Yale and the secretive Skull and Bones through back door politics, the CIA, and the White House to have so much control over international politics? The answers are startling. Kitty Kelley has written a compelling portrait of a family addicted to wealth and power. From Prescott Bush's lies about his heroism during the First World War, and George Bush senior's relationship with his wife Barbara, his unsuccessful campaign for Texas senator and his actions as the head of the CIA, the Vice-President and President of the United States, to his sons' current positions of power and influence in US politics. George Bush junior's successes and failures have had closer public scrutiny than any other member of the family, but Kitty Kelley leaves no stone unturned in her examination of his childhood, his relationship with his parents, his party days at Andover and Yale, his business dealings, his rise to political power and his performance as the 43rd President of the United States.

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About the Author:

Kitty Kelley is the award-winning author of HIS WAY: THE UNAUTHORISED BIOGRAPHY OF FRANK SINATRA, THE ROYALS, NANCY REAGAN: UNAUTHORISED, as well as biographies of Jackie Onassis (JACKIE OH!) and Elizabeth Taylor (THE LAST STAR). A former staffer on the Washington Post, she began a full-time career as a freelance writer in 1972, and her articles have featured in the New York Times, Newsweek and People. She has received numerous awards including, in 1987, the Outstanding Author Award from the American Society of Journalists and Authors. Kitty Kelley lives in the USA.

Review:

"This is a story of power, sex and betrayal--but mostly of power." -"The New York Times Book Review" "A thoroughly researched piece of work. Ms. Kelley clearly devoured and digested the extant literature on the family." -"The New York Times" "Kelley's account of the rise and fall of the Bush family is both inspirational and cautionary. She convincingly shows that good looks, energy, athleticism, ambition, felicitous marriages and social networking can compensate for intellectual ordinariness." -"The Washington Post Book World" "The Family . . . has left few stones unturned. . . . Kelley has brought new information to bear on a family that, for better or worse, deserves her kind of royal treatment." -"The New York Times Book Review" "A sweeping indictment of the mind-set of the [Bush] family, that they grew up feeling that this was their due." -Garry Trudeau," The Charlie Rose Show" "Despite the best efforts of the media, the public is gaining insight into their president as the facts leak out and as Kitty Kelley's The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty, tops the sales chart." -"Newsday" "Kelley nails the evidence and, although the secretive Bush family will not like it, demonstrates beyond doubt what the American press dared not print." -"The Guardian"

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