Humanities Lecture to feature Pulitzer winner
Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential historian Jon Meacham will deliver the Idaho Humanities Council’s 14th annual North Idaho Distinguished Humanities Lecture at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 7, at The Coeur d’Alene Resort. Meacham’s topic will be “America Then and Now: What History Tells Us About the Future.”
Tickets will be available by visiting idahohumanities.org and are available now by calling (888) 345-5346. General tickets are $60 and benefactor tickets are $125. Benefactors are invited to a private pre-event reception with Meacham at 5 p.m. The evening will begin with a no-host reception and silent auction at 6 p.m. at The Resort. Dinner will be served at 7 p.m., with Meacham’s talk to follow. Meacham’s books will be available from the Well-Read Moose onsite for signing afterwards.
A presidential biographer and contributing editor at Time magazine, Jon Meacham is one of America’s most prominent public intellectuals. A regular guest on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, he is a skilled storyteller with a depth of knowledge about politics, religion, and current affairs, and a concise analyst of how issues and events impact our lives.
His latest biography, “Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush,” debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times bestsellers list. The Times said, “Destiny and Power reflects the qualities of both subject and biographer: judicious, balanced, deliberative, with a deep appreciation of history and the personalities who shape it.”
Meacham’s bestseller “Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power” was hailed as “masterful and intimate” by Fortune magazine. His other books include "Franklin and Winston," "American Gospel," and "American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House," which won the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 2009.
Meacham is executive vice president and executive editor at Random House Publishing Group. He served as Newsweek’s managing editor from 1998 to 2006, and as editor from 2006 to 2010. The New York Times called him “one of the most influential editors in the news magazine business.” Now a contributing editor at Time, he writes for its “Ideas” section.
He has appeared on "Meet the Press," "The Colbert Report," PBS’ "Charlie Rose," Ken Burns’ documentary series "The Roosevelts: An Intimate History," and other television news programs and documentaries.
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 he chairs the National Advisory Board of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University.
The event is made possible in part by major support from Marc and Vicki Brinkmeyer and Idaho Forest Group. As the lead sponsor of the IHC’s annual Distinguished Humanities Lecture for the past 14 years, Idaho Forest Group once again has stepped up to the plate to bring to Coeur d’Alene (and to many area high school students) one of the most popular and insightful historians of our time.
The IHC also is grateful for additional critical support for the event from Lewis-Clark State College, Coeur d’Alene, University of Idaho, Coeur d’Alene, Hagadone Corporation, Coeur d’Alene Press and Idaho Public Television.