JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956

“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