Ambassador's Journal: A Personal Account of the Kennedy Years (Tesoro books) [Paperback]

John Kenneth Galbraith (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 678 pages
• Publisher: Paragon House; 1 edition (March 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1557780714
• ISBN-13: 978-1557780713
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,240,454 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

John Kenneth Galbraith who was born in 1908, is the Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics Emeritus at Harvard University and a past president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is the distinguished author of thirty-one books spanning three decades, including The Affluent Society, The Good Society, and The Great Crash. He has been awarded honorary degrees from Harvard, Oxford, the University of Paris, and Moscow University, and in 1997 he was inducted into the Order of Canada and received the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for Lifetime Achievement. In 2000, at a White House ceremony, he was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars JFK years through the eyes of an economist turned diplomat, September 16, 2003

By 

Govindan Nair (Vienna, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ambassador's Journal: A Personal Account of the Kennedy Years (Hardcover)

Having recently exhumed this 1969 book from my basement, I took time to selectively enjoy some of the diary entries which were written during the Kennedy years, largely from the US Embassy in India. Galbraith was a Harvard economist who worked for the JFK campaign and was given the ambassadorial appointment to India which he had asked for. In his usual witty and sardonic style, he recounts anecdotes from this era, including encounters with JFK, Nehru, and other world leaders. The book closes with the funeral of JFK at which Galbraith meets French President De Gaulle. QUOTE I told him I thought there was a real resilience in our political system; that we could survive the death of John F. Kennedy; that we needed to reflect less on the consequences of this action and more on the wickedness of the violence which struck down a man who so throughly loved life. De Gaulle said he agreed, that we had come to be far too casual abouth death. France and the United States both had a core of violent people at large. UNQUOTE

Such is the tenor of this book, which is more mildly humorous than profound. Incidentally, I have reviewed a book by another ambassador to India - from Mexico - whom I believe served at about the same time in New Delhi as Galbraith. The book entitled In Light Of India is by Mexican writer Octavio Paz, and is more focused on culture and history than this diary of the U.S. ambassador who was his contemporary.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Galbraith and Kennedy, October 21, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Ambassador's Journal: A Personal Account of the Kennedy Years (Hardcover)

Here's a book that deserves to be back in print. Galbaith might not be much of an economist but he's a wonderful writer, and his perspective on people and events of the early Sixties should retain its historical interest as that era falls further astern