By the time of his assassination in 1963, John F. Kennedy stood at the helm of the greatest power the world had ever seen. But who was the man behind the myth?

Born in 1917 to a striving Irish-American family that had ascended the ranks of Boston’s political machine, Kennedy was bred for public service and he rose meteorically to become America’s youngest president. And yet, in the decades since his death, contrasting portrayals of his charisma, extramarital affairs, and political legacy have made him more mysterious than ever.
Harvard professor Fredrik Logevall has spent seven years combing through material unused or unseen by previous biographers, searching for and piecing together the ‘real’ John F. Kennedy. The magisterial result is a sweeping two-volume biography that, for the first time, paints the full picture of JFK and of his role in the international events of the twentieth century.
Now Prof Logevall joins Tortoise editor and Guardian columnist Matthew d’Ancona to paint the full picture of JFK and of his role in the international events of the twentieth century. Join us for a chronicle of Kennedy’s extraordinary life and times, offering the clearest portrait ever produced of one of history’s most fascinating and enduring figures.

Praise for Fredrik Logevall:

“John F. Kennedy was a man before he was a monument, and among the great achievements of this wonderful book is how brilliantly Fredrik Logevall conveys both JFK’s humanity and the history of the age … A powerful, provocative, and above all compelling book.” – Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-Winning author of The Soul of America
“An utterly incandescent study of one of the most consequential figures of the twentieth century… A brisk, authoritative, and candid biography, and a wonderfully compelling history of America’s heady and troubled mid-century rise.” –Jill Lepore, author of These Truths: A History of the United States
This event takes place at 6:30pm BST.