Why England Slept

Why England Slept is the published version of a thesis written by John F. Kennedy while in his senior year at Harvard College. Its title was an allusion to Winston Churchill's 1938 book While England Slept, which also examined the buildup of German power. Published in 1940, the book examines the failures of the British government to take steps to prevent World War II and is notable for its uncommon stance of not castigating the appeasement policy of the British government at the time, instead suggesting that an earlier confrontation between the United Kingdom and Nazi Germany could well have been more disastrous in the long run.

The book was originally intended to be no more than a college thesis – it was rated as a magna cum laude by Professor Henry A. Yeomans and as a cum laude plus by Professor Carl J. Friedrich. Kennedy's father, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., always keen to elevate his son's reputation, helped bring the book to publication.

As ambassador to Britain, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. supported Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement during the late 1930s. John F. Kennedy lived with his father in Britain at that time and witnessed the Luftwaffe's bombings of Britain first-hand.

The book's introduction was written by Henry R. Luce. Joseph Kennedy had initially approached Harold Laski to write the introduction but Laski declined, feeling that it was "the book of an immature mind; that if it hadn't been written by the son of a very rich man, he wouldn't have found a publisher."

Release
After publication in 1940, the book sold 80,000 copies in the United Kingdom and the United States, collecting US$40,000 in royalties for Kennedy; those from the British sales were donated to Plymouth, England, recently bombed by the Luftwaffe, while Kennedy bought a green Buick convertible with the American income.