Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Categories
Memoirs

JFK

Fredrik Logevall

Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956

A Pulitzer Prize-winning historian takes us as close as we have ever been to the real John F. Kennedy in the first truly definitive biography of the elusive 35th president.

By the time of his assassination in 1963, John F. Kennedy stood at the helm of the greatest power the world had ever seen, a booming American nation he had steered through some of the most perilous diplomatic standoffs of the Cold War era. Born in 1917 to a striving Irish American family that had ascended the ranks of Boston's labyrinthine political machine, Kennedy was bred for public service and his meteoric rise to become the youngest president ever cemented his status as one of the most mythologized political figures in American history. And yet, in the decades since his untimely death, hagiographic portrayals of his dazzling charisma, reports of his extramarital affairs, and disagreements over his political legacy have made our 35th president more mysterious than ever - a problem further exacerbated by the fact that no genuinely comprehensive account of his life has yet been attempted.

Beckoned by this gap in our historical knowledge, Fredrik Logevall has spent seven years searching for the "real" JFK. The result of this prodigious effort is a sweeping two-volume biography that, for the first time, properly contextualizes Kennedy amidst the roiling American Century. Beginning with the three generations of Kennedy men and women who transformed the clan from working-class Irish immigrants to members of Boston's political elite, this first volume spans the first thirty-nine years of JFK's life, from sickly second son to restless Harvard undergraduate and World War II hero, through his ascendance on Capitol Hill and, finally, his decision to run for president.

In chronicling Kennedy's extraordinary life and times, Logevall offers the clearest portrait we have of an iconic, yet still elusive, American president.

Fredrik Logevall is Laurence D. Belfer Professor of International Affairs and professor of history at Harvard University. A specialist on U.S. foreign relations history and modern international history, he is the author or editor of nine books, most recently EMBERS OF WAR, which won the Pulitzer Prize for History and the Francis Parkman Prize.

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Book Published 2020-09-08 by Random House

Comments

Fredrik Logevall's brilliant biography rescues JFK from the myths that have long surrounded his early life without in any way obscuring the complexities of his character. There could be no more poignant reminder of what we were, far too soon, to lose.

John F. Kennedy was a man before he was a monument, and among the great achievements of this wonderful book is how brilliantly Fredrik Logevall conveys both JFK's humanity and the history of the age. With precision and with grace, Logevall has given us a memorable portrait of a man and of the world that, before he shaped it, shaped him. A powerful, provocative, and above all compelling book.

Our best Vietnam War historian now turns to another subject you thought you already knew, and he makes JFK as alive and compelling as if you were reading about him for the first time. Fredrik Logevall portrays the young Kennedy with the masterful intimacy and sympathy that only a great scholar and writer could achieve.

An utterly incandescent study of one of the most consequential figures of the twentieth century. With JFK, Fredrik Logevall has re-invented the genre of presidential biography, casting new light on the man and, far more profoundly, on the times. A brisk, authoritative, and candid biography, and a wonderfully compelling history of America's heady and troubled mid-century rise.

UK/ANZ: Viking UK ; Dutch: Het Spectrum ; Japanese: Hakusuisha Publishing ;

In this magisterial biography, Fredrik Logevall has deftly peeled away the many layers of myth surrounding John F. Kennedy to reveal a complex and surprisingly vulnerable human being. This first installment of his Kennedy biography is also the story of the rise of the United States to world power in a turbulent age. An essential read for anyone interested in the life and the times.

This is the first of two volumes by a Pulitzer-winning Harvard professor of the highest gifts, and the most compelling biography I have read in years.