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.
“Masterful . . . based on years toiling in the archives but written
with a delightfully light touch . . . At times it reads more like a
novel than a biography, so vivid is the prose and so extraordinary
the material.”—The Economist
“Logevall artfully melds the biographical and historical
approaches. Though crafted as a kind of bildungsroman, JFK delivers
something more than the traditional story of the callow wastrel’s
maturation into the admirable adult.”—The New York Times Book
Review
“A superb book . . . [The] remarkable rivalries within the Kennedy
family—propelled by valour, vanity and greed—form the backbone of
volume one of Fredrik Logevall’s riveting life of JFK.”—The
Guardian
“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.”—The Sunday Times
“As Fredrik Logevall shows in his superb JFK: Coming of Age in the
American Century, 1917–1956, Kennedy was a far deeper, worthier,
more interesting character than the familiar revisionist cliche. .
. . Logevall has a gifted historian’s grasp of the times as well as
the life of JFK.”—The Washington Post
“This volume . . . plows much of the Kennedy ground with such
dexterity and such wisdom. Misty-eyed Kennedy acolytes of a certain
age will read it and weep. Modern, less romantic readers will read
it and reap the benefit of Logevall’s acuity.”—The Boston Globe
“As Fredrik Logevall points out in his utterly absorbing biography,
the first of a projected two volumes, Kennedy deserves our
attention not simply because he was a celebrity, but because his
celebrity is a key to unlocking modern American history itself. . .
. JFK is biography at its very best.”—The Spectator
“It is the singular achievement of this magnificent new biography
of John Fitzgerald Kennedy that it has taken one of the most
scrutinized lives of the twentieth century and made it feel
fresh. Harvard historian Fredrik Logevall scrapes away the
encrusted layers of myth, rumour and cliché; the result is a
generous portrait of the young Kennedy, one that is attentive to
his contradictions and weaknesses even as it seeks to understand
what it was that made him so extraordinary.”—The Telegraph
“With a novelist’s eye for the telling detail and vignette,
[Logevall] strips away the layers of myth and sensationalism that
obscure the real, live human being that was JFK . . . . One of the
many pleasures of reading this keenly perceptive page-turner of a
biography is that it also illuminates the story of America’s ascent
to great power and then superpower status in [a] fresh and
compelling way.”—The Daily Beast
“Such are Logevall’s eloquence and storytelling powers that, even
though we all know the story’s tragic ending, he provides often
overlooked detail about how it all started. He reveals the future
president to be less skittish and far more savvy and independently
minded than we have been led to believe. He also renders him less
mythological and more accessible and familiar.”—Irish Examiner
“A magnificent portrayal.”—Detroit Free Press
“An excellent book . . . Logevall has taken a familiar story and
retold it in a way that is captivating and persuasive, as the tale
of triumphant emergence from war and the tragedy of an immigrant
family.”—The Times (London)
“With impressive vision and flawless execution, Logevall bores down
to a molecular level to put JFK’s life and achievements within the
context of the history of the times, while simultaneously exposing
the truths obscured by the most popular JFK
misconceptions.”—Booklist (starred review)
“Our best historian of the Vietnam War now turns to another subject
you thought you already knew, and he makes John F. Kennedy as alive
and compelling as if you were reading about him for the first time.
Fredrik Logevall portrays the young JFK with the masterful intimacy
and sympathy that only a great scholar and writer could
achieve.”—George Packer, author of The Unwinding: An Inner History
of the New America and Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of
the American Century
“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. It’s a powerful, provocative, and above all
compelling book.”—Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The
Soul of America
“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.”—Margaret MacMillan, author of War: How
Conflict Shaped Us
“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 Lewis
Gaddis, Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History at
Yale University
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