Make Gentle the Life of This World or Founding Fathers on Leadership

Make Gentle the Life of This World: The Vision of Robert F. Kennedy

Author: Robert F Kennedy

Throughout the 1960s, Robert Kennedy personally recorded ideas, ideals, and principles that spoke to his mind and his heart in a private journal like one kept by John F. Kennedy. Now, thirty years after Robert's tragic death, his son Maxwell Taylor Kennedy has opened this journal and culled from his father's speeches to offer us the quintessence of his thought. Filled with energy and insight, Make Gentle the Life of This World is the invigorating and thought-provoking portrait of a mind that shaped a generation and of a man who lived for his country.

Whether written in the tumult of his years as Attorney General, in the anguished moments after his brother's assassination, or during the exciting months of his last campaign, Robert F. Kennedy's words are a call for commitment, a reminder of its joys, and an inspiration to act.

Kennedy passionately sought to express the values that surged through his life -- racial justice, the pain of violent crime, fatherhood, family, democracy, leadership, courage, and patriotism. Beautifully illustrated with photos both public and private, some published here for the first time, Make Gentle the Life of This World commemorates how Robert F. Kennedy touched our hearts and energized our lives.

Library Journal

Kennedy's youngest son, only three years old at the time of the assassination, here compiles from his father's long-closed private journal the phrases that helped move a nation and the quotes from the ancient Greek philosophers, poets, and many contemporary figures who inspired RFK. Chapters are arranged by issues that were most important to Kennedy and remain timely today: the responsibilities of citizens to their government, the tragedy of poverty in the midst of plenty, the importance of dissent in a democratic society, and work as the solution for the welfare crises. The book's haunting photos convey Kennedy's spirit as successfully as the words.

Kirkus Reviews

This collection of brief passages drawn from Robert Kennedy's speeches and his journal, along with quotes Kennedy had copied from the works of favored authors, drawn together by his youngest son, is too slight and episodic to serve as a useful survey of Kennedy's thought. But the short passages do remind one of how the Kennedy brothers raised public rhetoric to a level now not often reached, as in a speech on welfare reform:

We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge. Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land.

Black- and-white period photographs add an appropriately nostalgic touch. A slender, handsomely designed book, clearly intended for browsers and gift givers.

Interesting textbook: 70 Simple Noodle Recipes or Easy Indian in Minutes

Founding Fathers on Leadership: Classic Teamwork in Changing Times

Author: Donald T Phillips

The Founding Fathers on Leadership takes you into the world of "team leaders" Thomas Paine, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison as they mapped strategy, forged consensus, picked the right staff people - such heretofore unproven talents as Lafayette and John Paul Jones - and made crucial decisions and daring choices. From Washington's recapture of Boston - achieved through intimidating, outmaneuvering, and outsmarting the British - to Benjamin Franklin's pivotal mission to Paris in search of a strategic alliance, Donald T. Phillips shows how these men faced challenges and dissension in their own ranks with an enlightened vision from which they would not stray. And just as risk-taking entrepreneurs on the business battlefield today must learn to consolidate their gains, the Founding Fathers faced fierce new battles after they had won the War of Independence, leading to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. A book that is as entertaining as it is insightful, The Founding Fathers on Leadership demonstrates some of the essential maxims for successful leadership and teamwork, such as rally every member of the organization to one common cause; turn an unsuccessful event into a clarion call for action; act as an agent of change for the people you manage; and pass the torch of leadership to the next generation. A profile of the great American success story in the making, this is a book that will inspire you to make your own American success story come true today.

Booknews

Extracts valuable lessons on business leadership from the story of the Founding Fathers' struggle to create a new nation. Shows how figures such as Thomas Paine, James Madison, and Benjamin Franklin faced challenges and dissension in their own ranks with a vision from which they would not stray. Includes checklists of organizational, management, strategic, and leadership lessons learned from the leaders of the American Revolution. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.