The Death of a President: November 1963 [Hardcover]

William Manchester (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1967

The Death of a President, November 20-November 25, 1963 [Hardcover]

Product Details

• Hardcover: 710 pages
• Publisher: Harper & Row (1967)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671049607
• ISBN-13: 978-0671049607
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.5 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #145,077 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

William Manchester is Professor of History Emeritus at Wesleyan University. His bestselling books include The Last Lion, a multi-volume biography of Winston Churchill; American Caesar, a biography of Douglas MacArthur; The Death of a President, The Arms of Krupp, and A World Lit Only by Fire. He lives in Connecticut.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Emotional history, December 22, 2009

By 

Michel Baudin (Palo Alto, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Death of a President: November 1963 (Hardcover)

You read this book not for the basic chronology of the JFK assassination and funeral but for their emotional impact, on the author, the Kennedy family, JFK's associates, the nation, and the world.

American Caesar, Manchester's biography of Douglas McArthur, is a history book; Death of a President, a song full or longing and nostalgia for a man Manchester worshipped. His depiction of a White House dinner for the Supreme Court in the beginning of the book feels like the dinner scene in James Cameron's Titanic. Later parts of the book also reminded me of the atmosphere of Stephen Frears' The Queen.

How do you make a 200-page blow-by-blow depiction of a state funeral readable? Manchester does it masterfully, often by focusing on details and glitches that humanize the participants: Robert McNamara getting drenched in the rain while checking out the Arlington grave site, the seating plan at the cathedral that forgot to account for account for participants wearing overcoats, chaos with limousines on the way out... none of which were visible to TV viewers. And Manchester concludes that this was consistent with JFK's life "of achievement, not tidiness."

Manchester's JFK is flawless: a perfect husband and father, as well as a brilliant statesman. While more modern historians have not knocked JFK off his pedestal, they have at least made a more nuanced portrait of him. But, for the sake of this book, it doesn't matter.

Manchester's vocabulary choices are sometimes surprising. JFK's circle of close associates, for example, is referred to as his "mafia," without any sinister meaning. This is apparently how they were referring to themselves, but I don't think a modern writer would use it in this way today.

Like another reviewer, I had never heard of this book before reading about the conflict it caused between Manchester and Jacqueline Kennedy in Vanity Fair. Today, this book is out of print and hard to find. It shouldn't be.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A piece of classic journalism, August 18, 2009

By 

N. B. Kennedy (Hopewell, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Death of a President: November 1963 (Hardcover)

In research for my work, I recently needed to obtain copies of the Look magazine issues that originally serialized this book. The articles about JFK's death made for fascinating reading, a true triumph of descriptive journalism. The details were telling and the depth truly astounding. It's this kind of reporting that makes me wistful for the heyday of journalism. Bloggers, schmoggers.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good book and very emotional, March 29, 2010

By 

A. Ballard "Corinthos fan 4 life" (Fortuna,ca) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Death of a President: November 1963 (Hardcover)

This book had you feeling every emotion while reading it. I rarely cry while reading books but this book had me in tears through the entire book, I was also cheering because of certain action done by members of the services, the kennedy team and of the family itself. I was very skeptical about reading this book sense it got alot of heat before being published but I think the end result was done very well. I would recommend this book to any one who is/was a fan of JFK, the Kennedy's in a whole or just anyone who wasn't born yet(like me) who might want to get a real glimpse of what are parents and the rest of the world went through at that time. Definitely adding this to my collection.