Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House and the #1 New York Times bestseller Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, will speak at the Clay Center in Charleston on March 12 at 7:30 p.m. Meacham’s talk is part of West Virginia University’s David C. Hardesty Jr. Festival of Ideas and is co-sponsored by The Charleston Gazette.
Biographer Walter Isaacson lauded Thomas Jefferson, calling the book “A true triumph. In addition to being a brilliant biography, Thomas Jefferson is a guide to the art of power?a fascinating look at how Jefferson wielded his driving desire for power and control.”
Meacham is also the author of two other New York Times bestsellers—American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers and the Making of a Nation and Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship.
He is the former editor of Newsweek and executive vice president and executive editor at Random House Publishing. From 2012 to 2011, he served as co-anchor of the PBS weekly primetime news and public affairs program, “Need To Know.” He continues to conduct in-depth interviews, provide commentary, publish “In Perspective” essays, and anchor occasional special reports.
Meacham is currently editing a book by former vice president Al Gore and a series of e-books published by Politico on the 2012 presidential campaign, as well as working on two new books of his own.
He has written for The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Slate and The Los Angeles Times Book Review. In 2009, Meacham was elected to the Society of American Historians and serves on its executive board. He is a “Global Leader for Tomorrow” of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Born in Chattanooga in 1969, Meacham holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from The University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn. He holds an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University, in addition to three other honorary doctorates. He is a communicant of St. Thomas Episcopal Church Fifth Avenue, where he serves on the Vestry of the 180-year-old parish and is a member of the Vestry of Trinity Church Wall Street.
The event is free and open to the public. A reception and book signing will follow Meacham’s lecture.
Festival of Ideas was created in 1995 by former University president, David C. Hardesty Jr. It was inspired by events he organized as WVU’s student body president in the 1960s. Today, this lecture series is organized by the Office of University Events and brings key figures from politics, business, research, entertainment, sports and the arts to campus throughout the academic year.
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CONTACT: Liz Dickinson, Office of University Events
304-293-8025, liz.dickinson@mail.wvu.edu
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