WINNER OF THE ELIZABETH LONGFORD PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY
'The most compelling biography I have read in years . . . There has
been a host of JFK biographies, but this one excels for its
narrative drive, fine judgments and meticulous research . . . makes
the story seem a cliffhanger even though we know what is coming'
Max Hastings, Sunday Times 'In his utterly absorbing JFK, Fred
Logevall reconstructs not only a great man, but also his entire
age' Brendan Simms, author of Hitler: A Global Biography The
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian takes us as close as we have ever
been to the real John F. Kennedy in this revelatory biography of
the iconic, yet still elusive, thirty-fifth 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. 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 modern 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, Harvard professor Fredrik Logevall has spent
much of the last decade combing through material unseen or unused
by previous biographers, searching for and piecing together the
'real' John F. Kennedy. The result of this prodigious effort is a
sweeping two-volume biography that for the first time properly
contextualizes Kennedy's role in the international events of the
twentieth century. This volume spans the first thirty-nine years of
JFK's life - from birth through his decision to run for president -
to reveal his early relationships, his formative and heroic
experiences during World War II, his ideas, his bestselling
writings, his political aspirations, and the role of his father,
wartime ambassador to Britain. In examining these pre-White House
years, Logevall shows us a more serious, independently minded
Kennedy than we've previously known. In chronicling Kennedy's
extraordinary life and times, with authority and novelistic
sensibility, putting the reader in every room where it happened,
this landmark work offers the clearest portrait we have of a
remarkable figure who still inspires individuals around the world.
________________ 'A riveting study of young JFK. Logevall has
written a superb book.' David Runciman, Guardian 'A brisk,
authoritative, and candid biography, and a wonderfully compelling
history of America's heady and troubled mid-century rise' Jill
Lepore, author of These Truths: A History of the United States
'[Fredrik Logevall] makes JFK as alive and compelling as if you
were reading about him for the first time' George Packer, author of
The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America 'A powerful,
provocative, and above all compelling book' Jon Meacham, Pulitzer
Prize-Winning author of The Soul of America 'In this first volume
of Fredrik Logevall's definitive biography, JFK is all too
engagingly and amiably human . . . I hope Logevall's second volume
will follow soon' Peter Conrad, Observer
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