An Unfinished Love Story

A Personal History of the 1960s

By: Doris Kearns Goodwin

Narrated by: Doris Kearns Goodwin, Bryan Cranston

Narrated by Doris Kearns Goodwin with the star of Breaking Bad, Bryan Cranston! The audio edition also includes archival recordings of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Robert F. Kennedy.

The #1 New York Times bestseller from “America’s historian-in-chief” (New York magazine).

An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s by Doris Kearns Goodwin, one of America’s most beloved historians, artfully weaves together biography, memoir, and history. She takes you along on the emotional journey she and her husband, Richard (Dick) Goodwin embarked upon in the last years of his life.

Dick and Doris Goodwin were married for forty-two years and married to American history even longer. In his twenties, Dick was one of the brilliant young men of John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier. In his thirties he both named and helped design Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and was a speechwriter and close advisor to Robert Kennedy. Doris Kearns was a twenty-four-year-old graduate student when selected as a White House Fellow. She worked directly for Lyndon Johnson and later assisted on his memoir.

Over the years, with humor, anger, frustration, and in the end, a growing understanding, Dick and Doris had argued over the achievements and failings of the leaders they served and observed, debating the progress and unfinished promises of the country they both loved.

The Goodwins’ last great adventure involved finally opening the more than three hundred boxes of letters, diaries, documents, and memorabilia that Dick had saved for more than fifty years. They soon realized they had before them an unparalleled personal time capsule of the 1960s, illuminating public and private moments of a decade when individuals were powered by the conviction they could make a difference; a time, like today, marked by struggles for racial and economic justice, a time when lines were drawn and loyalties tested.

Their expedition gave Dick’s last years renewed purpose and determination. It gave Doris the opportunity to connect and reconnect with participants and witnesses of pivotal moments of the 1960s. And it gave them both an opportunity to make fresh assessments of the central figures of the time—John F. Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy, and especially Lyndon Johnson, who greatly impacted both their lives. The voyage of remembrance brought unexpected discoveries, forgiveness, and the renewal of old dreams, reviving the hope that the youth of today will carry forward this unfinished love story with America.

©2024 Doris Kearns Goodwin (P)2024 Simon & Schuster Audio

Awesome as Usual

Great look back on both history of the 60s from those right in the thick of it. Touching love story on top of it. DKG inimitable as Presidential historian. Great read (listen)!

Front row seat to history in the 1960s

Intimate, vulnerable history that “puts you there,” in the room where so much happened. Great stories from one of America’s most beloved historians.

Great book!

So good! I was in elementary school when JFK was shot and killed. Later we lost RFK and MLK. I heard the sounds on the TV of protests, unrest and the Tet offensive. I grew up seeing the older brothers of my friends drafted and sent to Vietnam, never to be the same again. This book filled in the information that I didn’t understand at the time: the who, what and why’s from personal views of a young author and her husband’s who were there in the eye of the storm in the White House. I couldn’t stop listening. It was a great book!

Behind the scenes in 60s politics

Wonderful look into the lives of the people that created the public narratives of some of the greatest political figures of the 1960s.

"The Wonder Years" if you add a historian as the narrator. It captures the magic of the sixties.

I feel like I've lived through the sixties and I'm 42 years old. It's an interesting book, and you really get an insight into the sixties. This book made me appreciate my parents even more, now knowing what they lived through.

DKG’s ability to capture the true spirit and emotions of the 1960’s

Doris Kearns Goodwin’s mastery of historical facts and writing style makes this book a real treasure. She was there working closely with President Johnson and captured the spirit and struggles of the times. I loved this book from cover to cover.

I learned a lot!

I was just a little too young to remember President Johnson. I had not realized how much the Great Society was his life's work and the Vietnam war was his nemesis. What I remember about this time is the escalation in Vietnam, the 1968 convention, and the election of Richard Nixon. By the time I was politically aware Johnson had become a pariah and McGovern was the great new hope. I am glad to have learned even late in life that Johnson was not nearly as hawkesh as everyone made him out to be. According to our author and her spouse Johnson was a fairly decent guy with a big heart who wanted to do good and be remembered for medicare the voting rights act and 89 other things that no one remembers. I think Doris Kearns Goodwin for finishing her husband's life's work in sharing this book with us.

The passion for their Country and each other

I love this story, well written and spoken by the author so much.hhistoryI felt like I was there

Not the faces but the hearts and brains of our government.

I keep asking myself how I could not have heard of Richard Goodwin or Doris Kearns Goodwin before this book

The voices/ the history

This is a wonderful personal narrative wrapped around and existing within an impactful time in our history. The author is a skilled history teacher who can beautifully weave into the narrative her own personal record of events that powerfully resonate.