Why England Slept by John F. Kennedy - Softcover

Kennedy, John F

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9784871877671: Why England Slept by John F. Kennedy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 4871877671 ISBN 13: 9784871877671

Publisher: Ishi Press, 2016

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In June 1938, Future British Prime Minister Winston Churchill published a book entitled “Arms and the Covenant”. It was then published in the US in September 1938 as “While England Slept; a Survey of World Affairs, 1932-1938”. It highlighted the United Kingdom's lack of military preparation. At that time the war was looming but had not started yet. The majority in England wanted to stay out of the war and to rely in England's natural barriers. However, the views of Churchill ultimately prevailed and it was largely on the strength on this book that Churchill was elected Prime Minister. In 1940, future President John F. Kennedy, then a student in his senior year at Harvard University, found he did not agree with the analysis by Churchill of the reasons for the war, so he wrote a book with almost the same title. Kennedy wrote this essentially as a critique and a rebuttal. In it, he in he examined the reasons for the UK's lack of preparation. Why England Slept by John F. Kennedy was first published in 1940 and went through at least five reprintings. It has become a rare book, virtually impossible to get, because of the fame of the author, until this reprinting by Ishi Press.

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About the Author:

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born on May 29, 1917 in Brookline, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard with honors in 1940 and served as a P.T Boat Commander in the South Pacific during World War II. He was decorated twice by the Navy for the serious injuries he suffered when his boat was rammed in two while attacking a Japanese destroyer in the Solomons, and for "his courage, endurance and excellent leadership" in towing injured members of his crew to safety. A writer and newspaperman, Senator Kennedy in 1940 wrote Why England Slept, a best-selling analysis of England's unpreparedness for war, termed by the New York Times "a notable textbook for our times." Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946 at the age of twenty-nine, and re-elected in 1948 and 1950. In 1952 he became the third Democrat ever elected to the Senate from Massachusetts, receiving the largest vote ever polled by a Senator in the history of the State. In the 1952 U.S. Senate election, Kennedy defeated incumbent Republican Henry Cabot Lodge II for the U.S. Senate seat. The following year, he married Jacqueline Bouvier. Kennedy underwent several spinal operations over the next two years. Often absent from the Senate, he was at times critically ill and received Catholic last rites. During his convalescence in 1956, he published Profiles in Courage, a book about U.S. Senators who risked their careers for their personal beliefs, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1957. He was elected President of the United States John F. Kennedy was sworn in on January 20, 1961. In his inaugural address he spoke of the need for all Americans to be active citizens, famously saying, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." He asked the nations of the world to join together to fight what he called the "common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself". President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, at 12:30 pm Central Standard Time on Friday November 22, 1963, while on a political trip to Texas to smooth over frictions in the Democratic Party between liberals and conservative John Connally. Traveling in a presidential motorcade through downtown Dallas, he was shot once in the throat and once in the head. Kennedy was taken to Parkland Hospital, but pronounced dead at 1:00 pm. Only 46, President Kennedy died younger than any other U.S. president. There are numerous theories as to who killed him and why, but none have been proven.

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