ELIZABETH LONGFORD PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY WINNER 2021: FREDRIK LOGEVALL FOR ‘JFK VOLUME 1’ (VIKING)

Fredrik Logevall is the Laurence D. Belfer Professor of International Affairs at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School and Professor of History at Harvard University. A specialist on US foreign relations history and modern international history, he previously taught at Cornell University and the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he co-founded the Center for Cold War Studies. Logevall is the author or editor of ten books, most recently Embers of War, which won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for History, the Francis Parkman Prize, the American Library in Paris Book Award and the Arthur Ross Book Award from the Council on Foreign Relations.

Elizabeth Longford Prize Chair of judges, Roy Foster, says: ‘Logevall’s JFK Volume 1 illuminates Boston-Irish culture, the moneyed American elite, and the youthful Kennedy’s fascination with politics in Europe as well as the USA. Clear-eyed about his subject’s faults as well as his charisma, the author paints a compelling portrait of a political phenomenon in the making. Kennedy is shown to be both more aspirational and more independent of his father than previously supposed. In the tradition of the Elizabeth Longford Prize, this is high-octane historical biography, placing a major subject in a new and arresting light.’