2.Īs my Miller Center colleague, Professor Marc Selverstone, observes, the JFK literature covers an arc that began shortly after his death with memoirs from the knights of Camelot’s round table, nostalgia-infused stories on the golden age of a fallen president. In addition, previously classified documents have been released and will particularly enlighten Vol. Authors have mined these resources for initial takes on their subjects, but no one has revisited them with Logevall’s intent to tell John F. just a few months after the assassination the Miller Center’s release of the Edward Kennedy Oral History Project opening a portion of Robert Kennedy’s papers and the lifting of redactions in other family members’ interviews. Kennedy, 1917-1963, an archival treasure trove has come to light, including the vast papers of JFK’s parents, Joe and Rose Kennedy Jacqueline Kennedy’s compelling eight-hour oral history, conducted by Arthur Schlesinger Jr. 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.ĭespite that emotive justification for writing additional books on John Kennedy, is there anything new to report? Since the last scholarly biography appeared in 2003, Professor Robert Dallek’s An Unfinished Life: John F. It is a two-volume enterprise, so the just-published volume ends before the young Massachusetts senator begins his improbable race for the White House. Source: Google Imagesįor now, and some time to come, the new tome, JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956, elegantly penned by Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard historian Fredrik Logevall, will constitute the definitive work on Kennedy. But the number of biographies alone on Abraham Lincoln number over 16,000. Kennedy aficionados couldn’t be blamed for exclaiming, “Really? Another biography of JFK?” At last count, all books on the 35 th president total more than 40,000. You can hear her conversation with Fred Logevall on his new biography here. She is writing a book on the political relationship between JFK and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Baliles Professor and Director of Presidential Studies at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia. Perry about Fredrik Logevall’s new work: JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956. “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.

John f kennedy by robert dallek