JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956
Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956
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4.6 • 84 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • A Pulitzer Prize–winning historian takes us as close as we have ever been to the real John F. Kennedy in this “masterful” (The Economist) biography of the iconic, yet still elusive, thirty-fifth president.
“An utterly incandescent study of one of the most consequential figures of the twentieth century.”—Jill Lepore, author of These Truths: A History of the United States
In development as the Netflix series Kennedy, starring Michael Fassbender
WINNER OF THE ELIZABETH LONGFORD PRIZE • NAMED THE TIMES’ BIOGRAPHY OF THE YEAR
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 that he had steered through some of the most perilous diplomatic standoffs of the Cold War. Born in 1917 to a striving Irish American family that had become among Boston’s wealthiest, Kennedy knew political ambition from an early age, and his meteoric rise to become the youngest elected president cemented his status as one of the most mythologized figures in American history. And while hagiographic portrayals of his dazzling charisma, reports of his extramarital affairs, and disagreements over his political legacy have come and gone in the decades since his untimely death, these accounts all fail to capture the full person.
Beckoned by this gap in our historical knowledge, Fredrik Logevall has spent much of the last decade on a sweeping two-volume biography that properly contextualizes Kennedy amid the roiling American Century. This volume spans the first thirty-nine years of JFK’s life to reveal his early relationships, his formative experiences during World War II, his ideas, his writings, and his political aspirations.
JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917–1956 is a sweeping history of the United States in the middle decades of the twentieth century, as well as the clearest portrait we have of this enigmatic American icon.
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Sunday Times (London), New Statesman, The Daily Telegraph, Kirkus Reviews
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The young John F. Kennedy was no callow playboy but a serious and self-directed man, according to this sweeping first installment in a planned two-volume biography by Harvard history professor Logevall (Embers of War). Covering Kennedy's life up to his Thanksgiving 1956 decision to run for president, Logevall writes that though Kennedy may have resented his parents' favoritism for his older brother, Joseph Kennedy Jr., he also "treasured the space and relative anonymity his status as the second son provided." Logevall's JFK is still a charming, detached ironist and womanizer, as in other accounts, but he was also possessed of a determined character and a sophisticated intellect, capable in his early 20s of making penetrating analyses of fascism and the strength of the German-Italian alliance while traveling through Europe before WWII. The author also emphasizes Kennedy's independent-mindedness as he outgrew his father's isolationist politics and frequently rejected his advice (though not his money) during later political campaigns. Logevall writes vividly of the hothouse Kennedy family culture, but also widens his lens to take in the forces of war, politics, and television that shaped JFK's worldview and career. This richly detailed portrait sometimes feels romanticized in its evocations of Kennedy's charisma, but Logevall helpfully reminds readers of the considerable substance beneath the glamour. Political history buffs will be enthralled.
