JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917–1956
2020 biography by Fredrik Logevall / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917–1956?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, (1917–1956) is a 2020 biography written by historian Fredrik Logevall. Published by Random House in September 2020, the work examines the education, military service, and political career of an American president who had acquired a great deal of his knowledge of International Relations in his early years. According to Logevall, it was Kennedy's knowledge of international relations gained in his youth that allowed him to steer the nation through the perilous deadlocks, short-term victories, and failures of the Cold War. These included his disastrous attempt to thwart Castro's communist takeover of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, and the more positively received resolution of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Kennedy's brief Presidency was also noted for expediting the early stages of military détente with the Soviet Union by the signing of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in August 1963 and its enactment in October of that year. Logevall observed that Kennedy's awareness of the imperialistic nature of Russia during the Cold War and his wariness of the nature of Communist expansionism later influenced his goals as President to keep America first in diplomacy, improve ties with foreign countries in the Americas, and to keep America first in scientific and military technology. This focus led Kennedy to later establish the Peace Corps, Alliance for Progress with Latin America, and the continuation of the Apollo program with the goal of landing a man on the Moon before 1970.
Author | Fredrik Logevall |
---|---|
Illustrator | Photo by Al Fenn/The Life Picture Collection/Getty Images, Copyright Martha Stewart |
Cover artist | Design by Lucas Heinrich |
Country | New York, USA |
Language | English |
Subject | The life of John F. Kennedy prior to his run for President |
Genre | Nonfiction |
Publisher | Random House |
Publication date | September 5, 2020 |
Media type | Print (hardback), ebook available |
Pages | 792 (With index) |
ISBN | 9780812997132 |
Logevall attributes Kennedy's grasp of international relations in part to his Harvard education in government with a concentration in International Relations, as well as the familiarity he gained from assessing the views of the many world leaders he met in his early life as a wealthy son of the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1938-40. It was Logevall's belief that Kennedy's early grasp of International Relations would later guide him in the critical decisions he later made as President. Kennedy would learn more about the international climate during his brief college travels in Western Europe and Germany prior to 1940, and his far-ranging global junkets in 1951 as a young Senator.
The book unveils John F. Kennedy's early relationships, his formative WWII experiences, his ideas, writings, and most significantly his political aspirations, which the author believed took shape at an early age and were independent of his father's desire for him to enter public life. The author follows Kennedy through the birth of the Cold War, first showing Kennedy's awareness as a young journalist in 1945 of the threat of an imperialistic Russia.