Though he is often portrayed as a reckless hedonist who rode his brothers' coattails to a Senate seat at the age of 30, Ted Kennedy was a man both racked by and driven by insecurity, who overcame his limitations to become the custodian of his family's political mission. In this first volume of two, the author of the National Book Critics Circle nominee Winchell follows Kennedy from an unhappy childhood through his election to the Senate, and from his auto accident on Chappaquiddick to his role as Nixon's foremost congressional nemesis.

"A mammoth undertaking…. Gabler has brilliantly documented the rise of the most consequential legislator of our day…. Deeply impressive."—Walter Isaacson