The Gospel According to RFK: Why It Matters Now - Softcover

MacAfee, Norman

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0465003583 ISBN 13: 9780465003587

Publisher: Basic Books, 2008

Synopsis

New Expanded Edition to Commemorate the 40th Anniversary of Robert Kennedy’s 1968 Presidential Campaign. With 30 pages of new material. “He was in many ways the greatest president we never had,” writes Norman MacAfee in a new introduction to this revised edition of The Gospel According to RFK: Why It Matters Now. In the 81 days of his campaign, RFK outlined what seems today a redemptive vision for America: ending war and decreasing the gap between the races and classes, between rich and poor, black and brown and white. And then he was assassinated on June 5. But his words and thoughts and speeches remain to challenge and inspire. Included in The Gospel According to RFK are Kennedy’s lengthy condemnation of war and his extraordinary, extemporaneous eulogy for Martin Luther King. Speeches new to this edition include “On the Mindless Menace of Violence” and Senator Edward Kennedy’s eulogy for his brother at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. The Gospel According to RFK is filled with ideas that can be used to make a better world. It is for Democrats, liberals, independents, progressives and even some Republicans to read for inspiration and guidance. As Kennedy said, “Together we can make ourselves a nation that spends more on books than on bombs, more on hospitals than the terrible tools of war, more on decent houses than military aircraft.”

About this title

About the Author:

Norman MacAfee's other books include the poetry books, One Class; The Coming of Fascism to America; and A New Requiem; and The Death of the Forest, opera to music of Charles Ives. MacAfee co-translated a volume of the poetry of Pier Paolo Pasolini; two volumes of the letters of Jean-Paul Sartre to Simone de Beauvoir, Witness to My Life and Quiet Moments in a War; and Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. He lives in New York City.

Review:

""The Gospel According to RFK: Why it Matters" should be required reading for all of today's progressives (and probably for all high school students).... After reading this book, I could understand how Bobby Kennedy represented, more than anything else, hope. His words are truly moving. His loss is a terrible tragedy."--DailyKos

""The Gospel According to RFK" recounts the best of the campaign speeches made by RFK in the first 81 days of the campaign and the last 81 days of his life.... His speeches championing peace, justice, the environment, education, healthcare, and national unity are classics, not classics of studied, stilted rhetoric but classics of the eloquence that comes when a speaker's heart is in the words, shining through. As an unabashed admirer of RFK, editor Norman MacAfee's commentary ties this brief but powerful book together in seamless, memorable style.... Whatever the reader's politics, "The Gospel According to RFK" contains inspiring words to read and re-read for the sure and certain belief Robert Kennedy held that America was, as Thomas Jefferson proposed, the 'last best hope of mankind.'"--Mary Garrett, "The Advocate Newspaper," Tennessee

DailyKos
""The Gospel According to RFK: Why it Matters" should be required reading for all of today's progressives (and probably for all high school students).... After reading this book, I could understand how Bobby Kennedy represented, more than anything else, hope. His words are truly moving. His loss is a terrible tragedy."

Mary Garrett, "The Advocate Newspaper," Tennessee
""The Gospel According to RFK" recounts the best of the campaign speeches made by RFK in the first 81 days of the campaign and the last 81 days of his life.... His speeches championing peace, justice, the environment, education, healthcare, and national unity are classics, not classics of studied, stilted rhetoric but classics of the eloquence that comes when a speaker's heart is in the words, shining through. As an unabashed admirer of RFK, editor Norman MacAfee's commentary ties this brief but powerful book together in seamless, memorable style.... Whatever the reader's politics, "The Gospel According to RFK" contains inspiring words to read and re-read for the sure and certain belief Robert Kennedy held that America was, as Thomas Jefferson proposed, the 'last best hope of mankind.'"

"The Democratic Daily"
"The best book for converting your Republican friends to our side: "The Gospel According to RFK" by Norman MacAfee."

About this edition

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0465003583
• ISBN 13: 9780465003587
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 200