Becoming Ourselves

Abstract

When John F. Kennedy was running for President in 1960, he was asked to name his most important single asset. 'I think that it is my sense of history,' he replied. He went on to explain how vital it was to know how America had reached its present position of global influence, and beyond that 'to discern what the basic historical forces are that are moving in our own day, which ones we ought to oppose and which ones we ought to support'. For a man immersed in the minutiae of campaigning, it was a thoughtful response, reflecting a sophisticated historical mind. Kennedy saw the world as structured by continuing historical processes, in relation to which his own actions must be shaped.1