He served as co-anchor of Public Broadcasting System’s “Need To Know,” a weekly primetime news and public affairs program, from 2010 to 2011. He became managing editor in 1998 and editor from 2006 to 2010. Meacham was named national affairs editor at Newsweek in 1995. He is also author of “American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers and the Making of a Nation.” President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. He also wrote “Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship,” an acclaimed study of the friendship between U.S.

Meacham’s other books include “American Lion,” a biography of President Andrew Jackson, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize. Politicians are like the rest of us, only more so – their vices and virtues are exaggerated.” “No sane politician believes he is fully appreciated in his own time. “When the passions of the moment fade, reputations tend to rise,” Meacham said. Bush, about whom Meacham is writing a book.

“What we think in real time is not what we will think 20 years from now,” he said.Īn example of this is former President George H.W. The distance of time, he said, gives people the perspective to see more clearly the contributions of the past. “I have gone to the past to see if the problems of the present are unique, which they are not,” he said. He sees reporting and writing history as contiguous pursuits. Meacham is a former editor of Newsweek, and is currently executive vice president and executive editor at Random House Publishing. “Without defending him blindly, I think we are better off for having had Jefferson than if we had not had him.” “I see Jefferson for what he was – a working politician,” said Meacham, author of “Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power,” who believes people compartmentalize Jefferson as a philosopher, an educator, a slave-owner, a planter or as a foil for his political opponents.

in Old Cabell Hall Auditorium.įree tickets are available at the Arts Box Office, located within the lobby of the Drama Building at 109 Culbreth Road.ĭon’t expect the lecture to be a complete lovefest.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham will deliver the Jefferson Scholars Foundation's inaugural Shadwell Lecture on University of Virginia founder Thomas Jefferson on Oct.

Thomas jefferson by jon meacham