Presidential historian Jon Meacham will bring context and insight on today’s White House by looking through the lens of past presidencies at a free guest lecture Jan. 23, from 3 to 4:30 p.m., in the Student Union Pegasus Ballroom on UCF’s main campus.
The lecture – “The Art of Leadership: Lessons from the American Presidency” – will draw on the Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s vast expertise. It will explore themes ranging from Thomas Jefferson’s pragmatism and John F. Kennedy’s capacity to recover from his own mistakes to the management of conflicting egos as shown by Ronald Reagan and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Meacham’s latest release, Songs of America, co-written with musician Tim McGraw, was praised as “a glorious celebration of our diversity” by Quincy Jones and an “unusually well-written and moving story” by Ken Burns. He is also co-author of Impeachment: An American History, which reveals the complicated motives behind the three impeachments in U.S. history.
A contributing editor at TIME, Meacham writes for the magazine’s Ideas section. He also pens “The Long View” column in The New York Times “Book Review” in which he “looks back at books that speak to our current historical and cultural moment.” He served as Newsweek’s managing editor from 1998 to 2006 and editor from 2006 to 2010. The New York Times called him “one of the most influential editors in the news magazine business.”
Meacham is a frequent guest on Morning Joe; Real Time with Bill Maher; The 11th Hour and was featured in Ken Burns’ documentary series The Roosevelts: An Intimate History. Fox News produced an hour-long special about Meacham’s Destiny and Power in November 2015.
Named a “Global Leader for Tomorrow” by the World Economic Forum, he is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a fellow of the Society of American Historians, and chairs the National Advisory Board of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University. Meacham is a Distinguished Visiting Professor of History at The University of the South and a Visiting Distinguished Professor at Vanderbilt. He is currently at work on a biography of James and Dolley Madison.
Meacham’s visit is part of the Lester N. Mandell Endowed Distinguished Lecture Series.
