View source for Why England Slept

{{Short description|Book by John F. Kennedy}}
{{Infobox book
| name             = Why England Slept
| image            = Why England Slept Front Cover (1940 first edition).jpg
| caption          = First edition
| author           = [[John F. Kennedy]]
| title_orig       =
| translator       =
| illustrator      =
| cover_artist     =
| country          =
| language         =
| series           =
| subject          = Buildup of Nazi German power and [[appeasement]] of Nazi Germany by the United Kingdom
| genre            = Thesis
| publisher        = [[Wilfred Funk]]
| pub_date         = 1940
| media_type       =
| pages            = 
| isbn =  
| oclc             =
| dewey            =
| congress         =
| preceded_by      = 
| followed_by      = [[Profiles in Courage]]
}}
'''''Why England Slept''''' (1940) is the published version of a [[thesis]] written by [[John F. Kennedy]] in his senior year at [[Harvard College]]. Its title alludes to [[Winston Churchill]]'s 1938 book ''[[Arms and the Covenant]]'', published in the United States as ''While England Slept'', which also examined the buildup of German power.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/JFKPP-026-004.aspx|title=Typescript|publisher=Jfklibrary.org|access-date=28 December 2014}}</ref> Kennedy's book examines the failures of the [[British government]] to take steps to prevent [[World War II]] and its initial lack of response to [[Adolf Hitler]]'s threats of war.

Rather than castigating the popular [[appeasement]] policy that the British government then pursued, it is notable for taking the uncommon stance that if Great Britain had confronted [[Nazi Germany]] earlier it would have been far more disastrous for her than the delay caused by the appeasement policies of Chamberlain and other British leaders.

==Publication==
[[File:Henry Luce 1954.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Influential publishing magnate [[Henry Luce]] wrote the foreword]]
The book was originally intended to be no more than a college thesis. It was rated ''[[magna cum laude]]'' by professor Henry A. Yeomans and ''cum laude plus'' by professor [[Carl J. Friedrich]].<ref>{{Cite news|last=Raymont|first=Henry|date=1971-08-03|title=Kennedy Data: Years at Harvard|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/08/03/archives/kennedy-data-years-at-harvard-views-on-his-thesis-differed-grades.html|access-date=2020-07-04|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> However, Kennedy's father, [[Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.]], keen to elevate his son's reputation, encouraged Kennedy to convert the thesis into book form and publish it. He then enlisted the highly influential publishing magnate [[Henry Luce]] to write the foreword,<ref name="OBrien">{{cite book |first=Michael |last=O'Brien |title=John F. Kennedy: A Biography |publisher=Macmillan |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-312-28129-8 |pages=106–109 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gFRzBSBmGaIC&pg=PA106}}</ref> and his friend [[Arthur Krock]], former bureau chief of ''[[The New York Times]]'', to assist in redrafting the thesis, which had originally been titled "Appeasement At Munich."<ref>{{cite web|last1=Alterman|first1=Eric|title=The journalist and the politician|url=https://www.cjr.org/critical_eye/krock_and_kennedy.php|website=Columbia Journalism Review|date=February 14, 2013}}</ref>

The historian [[Garry Wills]] claimed that the assistance amounted to rewriting and retitling the manuscript and finding an agent for its publication.<ref name="wills">{{cite book|last1=Wills|first1=Garry|title=The Kennedy imprisonment: A meditation on power|date=2002|publisher=Mariner|location=Boston|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KvetuRawGT8C&pg=PA131|isbn=9780618134434|page=131}}</ref> As [[List of ambassadors of the United States to the United Kingdom|United States ambassador to the United Kingdom]], Kennedy Sr. supported British Prime Minister [[Neville Chamberlain]]'s policy of appeasement during the late 1930s.  His stance furthering appeasement would eventually cause Kennedy Sr.'s removal as ambassador to the United Kingdom, and prove disastrous for his future political aspirations.  By contrast, John F. Kennedy broke with his father's support for appeasement, and was moved when he witnessed firsthand the [[Luftwaffe]]'s bombings of Britain.

==Reception==
After it was published in 1940, the book sold 80,000 copies in the United Kingdom and the United States and collected $40,000 in royalties for Kennedy. Income from the British sales were donated to [[Plymouth]], a British city that had recently been [[Plymouth Blitz|bombed by the Luftwaffe]]. Kennedy bought a [[Buick]] [[convertible]] with the income from the book's [[North America]]n sales.<ref name="OBrien" />

==Analysis==
The book addressed Kennedy's belief in the need for objective and detached calculation in foreign policy decisions. Kennedy historian and foreign relations professor [[Fredrik Logevall]] believed the book demonstrates [[JFK]]'s "commitment to an unsentimental realism in international affairs". Kennedy is telling future policy makers that "foreign threats cannot be dealt with by ignoring them or wishing them away{{nbsp}}... they must be confronted by clearheaded and informed calculation".<ref name="realism">Kennedy believed objectivism should always be used in foreign policy, in Logevall, Fredrik, ''JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956'' (2020) New York, Random House, pg. 254.</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
*''[https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006785270 Why England Slept]'' New York: W. Funk, 1940

{{John F. Kennedy}}
{{Munich Agreement|state=collapsed}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:1940 non-fiction books]]
[[Category:Books about foreign relations of the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Books about international relations]]
[[Category:Books about politics of the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Books by John F. Kennedy]]
[[Category:Non-fiction books about diplomacy]]
[[Category:Theses]]
[[Category:Books about World War II]]
[[Category:Books written by presidents of the United States]]