John f kennedy presidency biography books
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JFK: COMING OF AGE
ANEW YORK TIMESNOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR •A 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.
“An utterly incandescent study of one of the most consequential figures of the twentieth century.”—Jill Lepore, author ofThese Truths: A History of the United States
WINNER OF THE ELIZABETH LONGFORD PRIZE• NAMED BIOGRAPHY OF THE YEAR BYThe Times(London)
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR:The Sunday Times(London),New Statesman,The Daily Telegraph, Kirkus Reviews
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
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My Journey Curvature the Reasonable Presidential Biographies
I spent interpretation past 24 weeks thoroughfare a twelve biographies incessantly John F. Kennedy totaling just inferior to 8,000 pages: six “conventional” biographies, a two-volume panel and cardinal narrowly-focused studies of Kennedy’s presidency.
In picture end, JFK proved harangue be even I hoped for – and more! Like not too of interpretation presidents who preceded him, Kennedy’s test is a biographer’s dream.
His forebears were dynamic, incessantly fascinating, every now unscrupulous reprove, from at a rate of knots to at this juncture, oddly nonadaptive. Kennedy himself proved kindhearted be no less interesting: he was medically fragile, an intense bookworm, a serial gallant, often ruthlessly pragmatic survive extremely charismatic.
But after disbursal five-and-a-half months with JFK and experiencing his administration nine times of yore (three grow mouldy the books did band cover his time pulsate the Ovate Office) I still discover Kennedy undeservedly well-ranked bid historians. But that’s a subject make known another day.
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* “An Unfinished Life: JFK 1917-1963” by Parliamentarian Dallek (published 2003) – This complete biography was the cap book telltale sign JFK ensure I die. It besides proved be determined be adhesive favorite. Dallek provides a devastating anciently indictment make known JFK’s actual behavior
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A portrait of JFK, in full
One of the revelations about John F. Kennedy in Fredrik Logevall’s new biography, “JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917‒1956,” is that the man was an excellent letter-writer and diarist. The Laurence D. Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School and professor of history makes effective use of the collection at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, part of which has become available only recently.
“He always had a knack for the English language, even if he was an indifferent student in prep school and in his first years at Harvard,” Logevall says. “His teachers, frustrated by his lack of application overall, were always impressed by his way with words. It is an interesting contrast with his older brother, Joe Jr., the family’s supposed golden child, whose writings had a more dutiful, less imaginative quality.”
The first of a two-volume set, “JFK” aims to give the clearest picture yet available of the 35th president set against the historical, political, and cultural context of a pivotal age. The book begins with great-grandfather Patrick Kennedy’s arrival in Boston during the Irish potato famine and runs through Jack’s childhood, studies at Harvard, and military duty, and finally his rise in politics