JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956

"Kennedy is certainly an iconic figure of the 20th century; he is also a highly consequential figure, I would argue, especially in American history, but indeed international history. His lifespan, which is 1917 to 1963, was an extraordinary period in world history and US history. Hence the reason this became a two-volume work. In volume one, I cover his life through 1956, when he was elected to the Senate, and I also tell a second story about the rise of the United States to great power status and then to superpower status. That second story, remarkable in its own right, maps onto the life of Kennedy. That is, you can better understand some of the seminal developments of the mid-20th century through the lens of JFK’s life. Thus, the debate in the United States between so-called isolationists and interventionists prior to the U.S.’s entry into World War II ; the Second World War itself; the origins of the Cold War; the beginnings of the civil rights struggle and McCarthyism—I believe all of these important developments and controversies in the middle decades of the 20th century are illuminated by looking at them through the prism of Kennedy’s life. We need to grasp that he lived through an extraordinary half century, and that he came of age during the Second World War. Also, he was one of nine children, in a family that became fabulously wealthy. As a result, Jack Kennedy did not suffer during the Great Depression in the way that many others did. He grew up as a young man of privilege. “Kennedy kept wonderful diaries” But he also had intense challenges throughout his life. He was sickly from a young age to the end, and he lost the siblings closest to him in age. His older brother was killed in World War II. Kathleen (or Kick), his older sister and the sibling he was in many ways closest to, died in a 1948 plane accident. And he effectively lost his sister Rosemary to a botched lobotomy in 1941. So, he had a lot of frailty and tragedy to overcome. Finally, we should note that he served with distinction in the South Pacific during World War II, and that soon after he began his meteoric rise in politics. He won his first election to the House of Representatives, from the 11th District of Massachusetts, when he was still shy of 30."