Neal Gabler: Edward Kennedy and the Liberal Hour, 1932-1975

“Catching the Wind” is the first volume of Neal Gabler’s two-volume biography of Edward Kennedy. Though he is often portrayed as a reckless hedonist who rode his father’s fortune and his brothers’ coattails to a Senate seat at the age of thirty, the Ted Kennedy presented by Gabler is one the public seldom saw. He entered the Senate with his colleagues’ lowest expectations, a show horse, not a workhorse, but he used his “ninth-child’s talent” of deference to and comity with his Senate elders to become a promising legislator. Following the deaths of his brothers John and Robert, he was compelled to become something more: the custodian of their political mission. BPL President David Leonard moderates this program as part of the Arc of History: Contested Perspectives series. This conversation is part of the esteemed Lowell Lecture Series at the Boston Public library. GBH Forum Network ~ Free online lectures: Explore a world of ideas Like us:  / gbhforumnetwork   Tweet with us:   / gbhforumnetwork   See our complete archive here: http://forum-network.org