Southern Methodist University Press


Dallas Public and Private
Aspects of an American City
by Warren Leslie
New foreword by Harvey J. Graff and Patricia Evridge Hill
New preface by the author

"This exceptional study . . . is a good deal more than a revealing, a valuable, and a careful book. It is also a courageous one, and an instruction manual on the grim penalties of political excesses and middle-class illusions and fears."—New York Times Book Review

First published in 1964, Warren Leslie's penetrating examination of Dallas in the immediate aftermath of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy is being brought back into print because it is one of the few books—then and now—to provide a sustained, coherent, and serious look at what made this city a "logical" place for the murder of a president. Distinguishing itself by its measured approach in which conspiracy theories are notably absent, Dallas Public and Private probes Dallas's political, cultural, and educational institutions, raising questions which Leslie says should also be asked about every American city.

Leslie's book is both a primary source of pre-assassination Dallas life and a serious study of the city at a specific time and place.

WARREN LESLIE grew up in New York City, moving to Dallas in 1947 after two years at Yale and two in the Marine Corps. He was a reporter for the Dallas Morning News and later became an executive of Neiman Marcus. After seventeen years in Dallas, he moved back to Manhattan. Since then he has been an executive with Revlon in New York City and with Max Factor in Los Angeles. Leslie is the author of four novels. He and his wife, Carol, currently reside in New York City.

Published in cooperation with the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies


Dallas Public and Private
ISBN 0-87074-428-3 paper $14.95

5 1/2x8. 272 pp.
Texas History.

Publication Date: April 1998.



Terms of order and other ways to order