JFK: Pursuit of the Presidency, 1956-1961

JFK #2

by Fredrik Logevall

A brilliant young presidential candidate revolutionizes American politics in this landmark volume of Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Fredrik Logevall’s JFK trilogy—a masterful account of Kennedy’s rise in the first truly modern campaign and a case study in the consolidation of power.

In the years since his victory, John F. Kennedy’s 1960 election win has become the stuff of American legend. The defining elements of this campaign are widely remembered: the first televised debates against Richard Nixon, national anxieties over the Cold War, concerns over the candidate’s Catholicism and relative inexperience, and the Kennedy clan joining Jack on the campaign trail. But Kennedy’s victory was never assured, nor was he as infallible as the mythical retellings lead us to believe.

In the second installment of his award-winning JFK trilogy, Pulitzer Prize winner Fredrik Logevall pulls back the curtain, unearthing the vital saga buried beneath one of the most consequential elections in American history—and the man behind it. Starting with Kennedy’s star turn at the 1956 Democratic Convention and ending with his inauguration in 1961, JFK: The Path to the Presidency, 1956-1961 is the story of a young politician and his trailblazing strategy that remade what a presidential candidate, and his campaign, could be.

Logevall reveals Kennedy’s incredible drive to start earlier and work harder than his competitors, but also his struggles during this pivotal period: his troubled marriage, questions about how to win over voters as a Catholic, and doubts about his forward-looking message. And with his historian’s eye, Logevall places Kennedy in the cultural milieu of America in the late 1950s—increasingly suburban and interconnected, the struggle for racial equality reaching a watershed moment, Communism now perilously close to home.

Deeply researched yet vibrantly novelistic, JFK is a propulsive, behind-the-scenes history of the making of an American legend, and a portrait of a man—and country—discovering the importance of meeting challenges head on, without fear or hesitation.

Genres: Presidents

768 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication March 16, 2027

About the author

Fredrik Logevall 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. He is a specialist in U.S. politics and foreign policy. Logevall was previously the Stephen and Madeline Anbinder Professor of History at Cornell University, where he also served as vice provost and as director of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies. He won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for History for his book Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam. His most recent book, JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956 (2020), won the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.
Logevall’s essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Politico, Daily Beast, and Foreign Affairs, among other publications.