For Fredrik Logevall, this book emerged from a paradox. On the one hand, the life and death of John F. Kennedy forms an extraordinary American story. On the other hand, although we have innumerable books on aspects of that saga, there exists virtually no full-scale biography. Nor has anyone fully examined Kennedy in the context of his time and place. Logevall set out to produce such a work. By situating JFK within the wider setting of the era and the world, he argues, we can better comprehend not only his rise, but his country’s rise, and can come to see how much Kennedy’s life story tracks with key facets of America’s political and geopolitical story in the middle decades of the 20th century.

Commentator: - Barbara A. Perry