Vroege RecensentenJoseph A. Esposito

On April 29, 1962, President and Mrs. Kennedy hosted the leading lights of the literary and scientific world—including forty-nine Nobel laureates—at the White House. Dinner in Camelot offers much more than a chronicle of this high-wattage dinner party, however; it depicts a national turning point. The party’s guests were members of the old guard and the new. Attendees included J. Robert Oppenheimer, Pearl S. Buck, Robert Frost, Linus Pauling, and Lionel and Diana Trilling—all representatives of a generation that came of age well before World War II. Also present were James Baldwin, John Glenn, Robert Kennedy, and William and Rose Styron—each younger than the president himself. After JFK’s assassination, nineteen months later, American culture and politics would undergo deep and fundamental changes. Many of the participants at this historic dinner would play pivotal roles in the nation’s next chapters. In this captivating book, author Joseph Esposito explores how one evening at the White House affected its attendees, America, and the world beyond.