RIP Arthur Schlesinger

Heart attack while out on the town with his family.


http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/01/schlesinger.obit.ap/index.html

 

It was once widely speculated that he was the actual author of JFK's "Profiles in Courage."

 

Read "A Thousand Days" when it first came out in the mid 60's. Got me hooked on American political books.

Schlesinger was the epitome of the eastern liberal establishment. And I mean that in a good way.

RIP

 

HH -Actually, it's fairly well documented that Arthur Krock -- TIME editor, friend of old Joe -- wrote most of Profiles. he became something of a court historian for the Camelot crowd, but I still read history today because a professor made me read The Age of Jackson back in college.
Schlesinger also famous for jumping into a swimming pool at a cocktail party during the Kennedy days.

 

You know, I had missed that. Interesting.

 

He had so many slam dunks it's hard to pick one.

The Age of Jackson changed the way history is written.

 

Damn, LJB, I figure you'll be going to the wake, no?

 

I apologize for taking this sideways, but I'd be interested in hearing any thoughts on Teddy White's "America in Search of Itself".

 

I thought it was Teddy White who wrote it.

Age of Jackson is a masterpiece (literally)

 

That was presumed to be the case for a lot of years, but Nigel Hamilton (I think. Might've been Dallek) nailed the Krock thing down.
Little soft on the notion of Old Hickory's being a precursor of the New Deal, but brilliantly written. Every popular historian owes that book a debt.