tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post3289968512976813129..comments2024-03-19T11:28:58.168-04:00Comments on History Unfolding: From a Lost WorldDavid Kaiserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05020082243968071584noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-84047044539217294552007-11-29T19:06:00.000-05:002007-11-29T19:06:00.000-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Nur-al-Cubiclehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13240215262850274264noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-84720939777378577082007-11-26T09:01:00.000-05:002007-11-26T09:01:00.000-05:00David - very interesting blog on Arthur Schlesinge...David - very interesting blog on Arthur Schlesinger, with good quotes from his diaries. I worry, tho, over your pally tone - especially the reference to his puff for your "American Tragedy." I realize you mean to be honest and accountable by the admission, but given the admiring tenor of the piece, it leaves the reader wondering how objective you are as an historian, and writer. I, too, admired Arthur for his intelligence and journalistic skills, but the way he became a slobbering mouthpiece and slavish scribe to the Kennedys (JFK, RFK, Teddy and sisters) in order that they would pay his personal secretary (which he didn't get as a prof in NYC, as he explained once to me) was sickening. Book by book, having made a small fortune from A Thousand Days, he damned in public any work that did not toe the family line or myth. Any attempt at biographical interpretation, after his own (which got him into scalding hot water with Jackie Kennedy), was labeled "psychobabble." His first wife told me she felt he had sold his soul when he dumped Stevenson and switched to JFK - overwhelmed by the Kennedy glamour and money. Of course she had her own scorned-wife reasons for so viewing his apostasy, but in a larger sense I think there was much truth in her reflection. He sold his soul to the Kennedys, and the diary became his private attempt to get it back - unpublishable in his lifetime. As you say, it makes for a most interesting document - but I feel you've missed the point of its creation. Anyway, now that today's NYT reports the Schlesinger family has sold the diary and his papers to the NY Public Library, perhaps some enterprising biographer (not me) will eventually reveal all this.<BR/>Good luck meantime with the blogoprize - your energy in writing the blog, in addition to your writing and teaching, is phenomenal.<BR/>Nigel HamiltonAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com