Presidential Historian Michael Beschloss presents "The American Presidency: Past, Present and Future"

In the aftermath of one of the most compelling presidential elections in United States history, Florida Atlantic University will welcome renowned presidential historian Michael Beschloss to campus on Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2017 at 3:30 p.m. as this year’s speaker for the Alan B. and Charna Larkin Symposium on the American Presidency. The lecture and audience Q&A will take place in the Carole and Barry Kaye Auditorium, FAU Student Union, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton campus. Tickets are $35 and can be purchased by calling 561-297-6124, at www.fauevents.com, or at the Box Office in FAU’s Student Union. Group rates and FAU faculty, staff and student rates also are available at the box office.
Beschloss will speak on “Critical Moments of the American Presidency: Past, Present and Future.” He will trace the critical moments and presidential qualities of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Ronald Reagan, as well as the most recent presidents. He also will examine what qualities through history have made great presidents and, in our own day, what make great leaders of all kinds.
 Newsweek magazine called Michael Beschloss “the nation’s leading presidential historian.” He is the first-ever presidential historian at NBC News and he writes a regular column for the New York Times.  He also appears regularly on “Meet the Press,” the “TODAY” show, and PBS’ “NewsHour.” In 2005, Beschloss won an Emmy Award for his role in creating the Discovery Channel series “Decisions that Shook the World,” of which he was the host.
Born in Chicago in 1955, Beschloss is an alumnus of Phillips Academy (Andover), Williams College, and the Harvard Business School, where he earned an MBA studying leadership and business history. He has served as a historian at the Smithsonian Institution, as and also served as a resident scholar at Oxford University and a senior fellow of the Annenberg Foundation. Beschloss unravels the mysteries of powerful and effective leadership in areas from business to politics to sports. He is the author of nine bestselling books, including “Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America, 1789-1989;” “Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy (co-authored with Caroline Kennedy)” and two volumes on “President Lyndon Johnson’s secret White House Tapes.” With more than 110,000 followers, Beschloss has the largest Twitter following of any historian on earth. His popular site appears on TIME magazine’s list of the world’s top Twitter feeds.
Since its founding in 2007, the Alan B. and Charna Larkin Symposium has previously welcomed former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, journalist/authors Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, and historian David McCullough as speakers. For more information about the Larkin Symposium, visit www.fau.edu/larkin.