Rich and Powerful

I've been loading The Camel with books for sale. I have a regular spot at the Trentham market, just across the road from my home, where I take books, mainly paperbacks, for sale. The next Trentham market is this coming Sunday, March 22, and the market is held every fourth Sunday of the month. Other markets coming up are the Blackwood Easter Woodchop Carnival which will be held at the beautiful Blackwood Sports Ground on Easter Saturday and the Clunes Booktown which will take place on May 2 and 3. At Clunes I will have a stall in the Wesley bluestone church.

As I collect books, I sometimes find ones that particularly interest me and I read them along the way. Recently I read two books about rich and powerful families. The first is The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys by Doris Kearns Goodwin. It's a history of the two big American (Irish American) families who produced John Fitzgerald Kennedy who became President of the United States in 1961 and was assassinated in November 1963 in Dallas, Texas. He was forty-six when he died.

I was amazed to find that Jack Kennedy's father, Joseph Kennedy, 'demanded' that his son take up a political career after the death of the eldest son, Joe Junior, in a spectacular plane crash near the end of the second world war. Joe Junior was to be the one who would fulfil his father's dream of providing America with its first Irish-American, Catholic, president. When that dream crashed Jack stepped into his brother's shoes. He was well fitted out for the job. A war hero, Ivy League education, son of the American Ambassador to London, rich, confident, handsome, given every opportunity to shine despite his poor health that caused him pain most of his adult life. Jack was a member of a rich and powerful family that had arisen from poor Irish immigrants who made their way up and up in American society. Once they reached the top they had the resources to live full, rich and exciting lives, empowered to make contributions to society and to explore and develop their natural talents.

The Fitzgerald Kennedys became part of America's rich and powerful ruling class and they mixed with and married others from similar wealthy backgrounds. In England they attended Ascot, Covent Garden, the brilliant soirees of rich society women. I don't know if Joseph Kennedy Snr. ever met the American Wallis Simpson during his years in London, but her attachment to Edward, Prince of Wales, and briefly King of England before his abdication late in 1936, rocked the British establishment and their aristocratic alliances across the world. When the couple married in 1937 and became the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, they embarked upon a life of exile from the upper, upper crust of the British Royals into the slighly lower echelons of the very rich and very famous, but less powerful elites. Think cruising holidays in fabulous yachts, long visits to the homes of various aristocrats and wealthy business tycoons, days of golf followed by cocktails, opera and glittering dinners, fabulous jewels, furs, hairdressers, manicurists,masseuses and servants attending to their every need.

Wallis: Secret Lives of the Duchess of Windsor suggests Mrs Simpson's liking for the fascist elites of Europe (she impressed Hitler) and the security risk she, and the Duke, presented during the days leading up to the second world war when several rich and powerful British, European and American families were in favour of an alliance with Germany against the dreaded communists in Russia.

Reading about these wealthy families alerts me to the powerful class structures that exist in our world and the enormous benefit (to themselves mainly) that such power affords in terms of the life opportunities given to its members. It's a world away, a parallel universe away, from the daily struggle of most of us. Thanks to our writers and historians, we can glimpse into that world of the rich and powerful.

At the Book Camel, these books are for sale.

Details:
Doris Kearns Goodwin,The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys-An American Saga, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1987, Ist Edition, hardback, dustcover, excellent condition. $25, plus postage and packaging.

Charles Higham, Wallis - Secret Lives of the Duchess of Windsor, Sidgwick and Jackson, 1988, 1st Edition, Hardback, dustcover, excellent condition. $16, plus p and p.