John F. Kennedy and the 'Thousand Days'

Although it lasted only for a 'Thousand Days', the presidency of John F. Kennedy is considered a defining moment in recent American history. Despite countless attempts by historians, journalists and cultural critics, the Kennedy myth, carefully crafted during his lifetime and eagerly nurtured after his violent death, lives on. The enduring notion that America might have been spared many of the traumatic events of the 1960s and 1970s, if only John F. Kennedy had lived, poses a continuing challenge to historians to reassess his foreign and domestic policies. In this volume scholars from the United States, Germany and Great Britain, mostly representatives of a younger generation, take a fresh look at key topics such as Kennedy's policies toward Europe, the Third World, the civil rights struggle, and poverty. Contrary to his often grandiose rhetoric of vigorous leadership and new frontiers and despite his considerable skills at managing foreign and domestic crises, the essays emphasize that President John F. Kennedy acted largely within the consensus of Cold War liberalism.