But we don’t have many true biographies, even one that is a full-scale examination of the entire life and that looks closely at his early life, in particular his teens and 20s, which I believe were key years for him (as they are for most of us). For more information or assistance, please contact us via https://alumni.virginia.edu/contact/ or call us at 434-243-9000. GAZETTE: In the second volume you’ll have to unravel the mystery around the assassination. Alumni Hall is open only for pick-up/drop-off or by appointment. The views expressed in TFTL blog posts reflect the views of the authors and not those of Lifetime Learning. Our country never seems to tire of new reading material on the Kennedys. In this first volume of Fredrik Logevall’s definitive biography, JFK is all too engagingly and amiably human. LOGEVALL: You’re quite right. What were you able to find that hadn’t been found before? With JFK, Fredrik Logevall has reinvented the genre of presidential biography, casting new light on the man and, far more profoundly, on the times. Television was a huge emerging thing as his career builds, and he had that savvy understanding of the medium and how he could use it to his advantage, kind of like FDR used radio so effectively. So I will provide it. The Kennedy family at Hyannisport, Mass., 1931. This is a brisk, authoritative, and candid biography, and a wonderfully … Collegiate JFK, journeying through Europe just prior to World War II, was no Alexis de Tocqueville observing American democracy in the 1830s. He was among the first politicians to see that images matter, that the right use of film can make a powerful difference. His father led by example, carrying on with innumerable women in the 1920s and 1930s, and the older kids knew very well what was going on. Rallying religious and health leaders to prevent child abuse, Approval of at-home tests releases a powerful pandemic-fighting weapon, Cancer vaccine shows durable immune effects. Inevitably, revisionism followed, starting in the 1970s and revealing the “dark side of Camelot.” A third wave of scholarship, including Logevall’s new book and his award-winning 2012 study of the Vietnam War, constitutes a balanced approach to the 35th president—examining his successes and failures, triumphs and tragedies, heroic traits and profound character flaws. Another biography of JFK?” At last count, all books on the 35th president total more than 40,000. GAZETTE: Many of the reviews I’ve read have focused on his womanizing, which we already knew about. Oswald’s associations and meetings in the weeks leading up to the assassination are worthy of investigation, however, and have been examined in recent studies. “JFK himself will remain firmly embedded in history as long as worthy biographies about him continue to appear in each new age,” says Barbara A. Perry about Fredrik Logevall’s new work: JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956. The formation of Kennedy’s character, intellect, powers of observation, and Weltanschauung, as Logevall weaves the threads of archival material, produces a rich tapestry. Historian Fredrik Logevall had written about John F. Kennedy before, in his Pulitzer-winning “Embers of War,” about the Vietnam era.But it wasn’t until he undertook a two-volume biography … It is a vexing issue to any biographer of JFK, and it has spawned a whole cottage industry of its own. With JFK, Fredrik Logevall has re-invented the genre of presidential biography, casting new light on the man and, far more profoundly, on the times. With JFK, Fredrik Logevall has reinvented the genre of presidential biography, casting new light on the man and, far more profoundly, on the times. You can hear her conversation with Fred Logevall on his new biography here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VKPMm1Dwn8. We look forward to resuming the events you love when it is safe to gather. His new book, JFK: Coming of Age in … Beckoned by this gap in our historical knowledge, Fredrik Logevall has spent seven years searching for the "real" JFK. “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. Our 35th president “was a more serious student of history and international affairs at an earlier point than I thought,” said Logevall, Kennedy School professor of history and international relations. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. A significant advantage Friederik Logevall has in approaching a JFK biography, is his previous scholarship on the Vietnam War. GAZETTE: His coming out against Joseph McCarthy seems to be a bit of a political turning point. And there were a lot of aspects of McCarthy’s political persona that he found off-putting — the disdain for senatorial good manners, the disregard for facts, for reasoning from evidence. Logevall has the biographer’s ability to pick out the details that shaped the man, but also the historian’s drive to explain why Kennedy so captured and shaped the American postwar moment. But certainly I will talk about Lee Harvey Oswald’s background, about what led him to take this action, and will give the reader a full sense of how it all culminated in this terrible moment. The Office of Engagement continues to offer a wide range of events virtually and is currently hosting over 40 unique experiences each month through UVA Clubs, Lifetime Learning and Cavalier Travels. 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 in 1956, when he almost became the Democrats’ vice presidential pick. Bobby admired his brother to no end, and Jack could now see Bobby’s intelligence and loyalty and good cheer. GAZETTE: Another family relationship we learn more about is with his brother Bobby, and how this became increasingly important. Do you have a sense of how you will approach that? We tend to think of him as a callow playboy, not serious about public policy or his career until quite late, until he runs for Congress in 1946, and maybe not even then. “His teachers, frustrated by his lack of application overall, were always impressed by his way with words. Stay tuned for the riveting narrative of how the great-grandson of Irish potato-famine refugees became the first Roman Catholic president (Joe Biden would be only the second) and how he governed in a turbulent presidency that lasted barely 1,000 days but ended so tragically and shockingly that it seems forever burned in the American psyche. No author has taken a deeper, more detailed, or thoroughly nuanced approach to the document trail and other resources available in the Kennedy Presidential Library. He did like poetry, and he memorized a lot of it starting already in prep school at Choate. Centennial exhibit includes earliest known recording of future president’s voice, JFK’s Winthrop House suite gets a historic facelift, Session recalls the president and his policies, and his understanding of global ties, Capturing the exotic creatures that grace Harvard’s buildings, gates, and shields, It was crackers and Scrabble at the cottage and, later, dinnertime jokes at the care unit. But there are paradoxes here, among them the fact that his administration took important progressive steps, establishing, for example, the President’s Commission on the Status of Women, with Eleanor Roosevelt as chair. Fredrik Logevall's new JFK biography is one of the first by a historian who did not personally experience the Kennedy years. 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. . He could have done so, but he didn’t, and that caused a lot of grief for him with liberals later on. Logevall provides meticulous analysis of young John Kennedy’s copious letters, student essays and Harvard senior thesis, diary entries as JFK traveled in pre-World War II Europe, missives from the South Pacific combat zone, and journalistic articles drafted as a military veteran for Hearst newspapers on the founding United Nations conference and Britain’s 1945 election. Popular music I think interested him less, and until Jackie came along he evinced little interest in art. Praise for JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956: “An utterly incandescent study of one of the most consequential figures of the twentieth century. GAZETTE: The book deals a lot with the influence of World War II on his character development. I will delve into that material and be interested to see what I find. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was awarded the Radcliffe Medal in 2015. Of the thousands of books written about JFK, America's iconic 35th president, which ones should you read first? Though his father was a towering force in his life and those of his eight siblings, Jack proved willing and able, to a degree I did not expect, to chart his own course. With JFK, Fredrik Logevall has re-invented the genre of presidential biography, casting new light on the man and, far more profoundly, on the times. He did have his playboy side, but some of his war actions can be called heroic. He preferred to sidestep the issue, aware that there were an awful lot of Irish Catholic voters in Massachusetts who still backed McCarthy. Early one morning in August 1939, twenty-two-year-old Jack Kennedy looked out his window at the Hotel Excelsior, in Berlin, not far from the Reich Chancellery, and caught a glimpse … The relationship with McCarthy was complicated, partly because of family ties. Despite that emotive justification for writing additional books on John Kennedy, is there anything new to report? Logevall provides meticulous analysis of young John Kennedy’s copious letters, student essays and Harvard senior thesis, diary entries as JFK traveled in pre-World War II Europe, missives from the South Pacific combat zone, and journalistic articles drafted as a military veteran for Hearst newspapers on the founding United Nations conference and Britain’s 1945 election. Fredrik Logevall (born 1963) is a Swedish-American historian and educator at Harvard University, where he is the Laurence D. Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and professor of history in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Brother to no end, and friends Radcliffe Medal in 2015 most ardent John Kennedy! And could have made it a career Fitzgerald Kennedy ( 1917-1963 ), the first by a historian who not! 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