Edward R. Schmitt is associate professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside.
"Schmitt offers an inside view of the problem of poverty, a look at how Robert Kennedy organized various political, social, and business elites around programs and special initiatives that he endorsed or, with help, originated. His carefully drawn and resourceful reconstruction of RFK's intellectual and emotional journey makes an important contribution, as does his notion that Kennedy's strategic vision placed him firmly in the camp of communitarian thinkers."--James W. Hilty, author of Robert Kennedy: Brother Protector "President of the Other America: Robert Kennedy and the Politics of Poverty provides a fine survey of Robert Kennedy's run for presidency. Kennedy was concerned with poverty and ran his campaign based on anti-poverty issues: critics accused him of opportunism, but his stand reflected a steady evolution in his political focus. College-level history libraries will find this a fine survey."--Midwest Book Review "Schmitt's carefully drawn and resourceful reconstruction of RFK's intellectual and emotional journey makes an important contribution."--James W. Hilty "A balanced, thoughtful work on Robert Kennedy's evolving communitarian, antipoverty ideology that convincingly argues for Kennedy's central role in the development of antipoverty approaches in the 1960s."--Register of the Kentucky Historical Society "A superb study of a key aspect of Robert F. Kennedy's public life: his commitment to alleviating the suffering of the nation's most poverty-stricken people. Schmitt provides an excellent contextualization of the poverty discourse in America during RFK's most productive years, from the period when he began serving as President John F. Kennedy's attorney general through the 1968 California presidential campaign. . . . Schmitt's analysis of Kennedy's work in support of poor whites in Appalachia, African Americans in urban centers, Latino farm workers, and Native Americans on reservations is a vital contribution to our understanding of class relations during the 1960s."--Journal of American History "[Schmitt's Book] offers a well-documented, historically grounded account of a career that gave millions of people reason to harbour those expectations - of Robert F. Kennedy, and of American politics."--The Journal of Urban History "Initially, yet another book about RFK might be passes over as redundant. But that would be a mistake. President of the Other America is a carefully argued, well-researched, nicely written and organized book with important things to say."--Reviews in American History "Schmitt's prose is lucid, his research and arguments are sound, and though the sheer complexity of 1960s-era politics may challenge readers' capacities, his book is a valuable contribution to our understanding of Robert Kennedy and his effort to confront poverty."--The Historian "Schmitt has created a nice little book on a neglected aspect of Robert Kennedy. . . . He shows Kennedy growing, maturing, becoming a bringer of hope if little more tangible to the downtrodden of the nation. It's well researched, nicely written, worth the time to read."--Historical Journal of Massachusetts "Schmitt shows us that what make Kennedy the 'President of the Other America' wasn't a set of policy proposals or political positions. Instead, it was his insistence, rooted in a deeply felt truth, that in America, who was rich and who was poor was as much a matter of fortune as it was of personal fortitude or special genius. For a man of means to acknowledge that, but for the whim of Fate, he could have been born poor and black was to suggest that poverty was an affront to America's founding principles. At a time win which noblesse oblige had given way to neo-Sumnarian cries of 'We Built That, ' Kennedy 's moment seems even more fleeting. Schmitt does us a service by reminding us that it ever happened at all."--American Studies
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
