Captains and the Kings (Caldwell)

Discussion Questions 
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get your discussion started for Captains and the Kings:

1. What drives Joseph Armagh—his promise to care for his siblings, his bitter experiences as an Irish immigrant, his own personal ambitions—or all three? Do you see him as an admirable character...or not?

2. Talk about life at the orphanage and how it affects Sean and Mary Regina.

3. What were the hardships faced by the newly arrived immigrants in America? How did their experiences mirror those of other newly arrived immigrants, perhaps your own ancestors?

4. Discuss the roles that the titans of industry play in this work. Do you feel Caldwell's writing is biased or objective? Are or were political systems dominated by major corporations; in other words, have governments, even democracies, had a history of doing the bidding of private consortiums, made up of powerful financiers and industrialists?

5. Can you see the historical parallels in this work to Joseph Kennedy and his sons, Jack, Bobby, and Teddy?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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