Being a devout history buff, I recently purchased “An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960’s by noted historian Doris Kerns Goodwin. I have enjoyed a number of her books, and purchasing her latest was an easy decision. An Unfinished Love Story offers a detailed view of events familiar to those of us who grew up and/or lived in the turbulent years known as the 1960’s. This was a decade marked by the idealism of the Kennedy years as well as the violent assassination of three beloved political leaders and the turmoil wrought by the Vietnam War.
On a personal level, I did much of my growing up in the 1960’s, and lived and learned a great deal about life as I experienced each of these events. From the hope and idealism of John F. Kennedy’s election in 1960, his “Ask not what your country can do for you, Ask what you can do for your country” charge, to the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and John and Robert Kennedy, each event impacted my life and is still vivid in my memory. Reading An Unfinished Love Story while recounting those events, also provided me a personal view of the Kennedy and Johnson White Houses displayed through the writings of Kerns Goodwin’s husband, the late Richard Goodwin. As a speechwriter and policymaker for Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, Mr. Goodwin had an upfront and personal view of the pivotal moments of the 1960’s, while Kerns Goodwin’s service in the Johnson White House presented her with a unique perspective on the events of the latter portion of the decade.
An Unfinished Love Story provides insights into some of the most critical issues faced by the American Presidency during the 1960’s, and serves as a guide to the complex decisions that were made during that decade that have had a long lasting impact on our country, Understanding how those events played out in the 1960’s presents us with an opportunity to better understand how, as “dark” as those events were, our nation came through them successfully, and will overcome the important issues we face today if we work to truly understand what kind of country we want to live in as we go forward. I believe historian Henry Glassie stated it well when he wrote “History is not the past, but a map of the past, drawn from a particular point of view to be useful to the modern traveler.” I feel as if this book has given us an opportunity to each be a “traveler” and to review and reassess events that have impacted the lives of so many of us who lived through that decade, and to know that such a reassessment will better prepare us for our future.