How Brave Presidents Changed America: Michael Beschloss Author Interview - Books (2012)

• published: 26 Jan 2015
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Michael Richard Beschloss (born November 30, 1955) is an American historian. A specialist in the United States presidency, he is the author of nine books. In November 2013, he was appointed as a contributing columnist on history for The New York Times. His "HistorySource" column appears in a new section of the newspaper called "The Upshot". He writes a weekly sports history column that appears in the weekend editions of the New York Times. Beschloss has been a frequent commentator on the PBS NewsHour and is the NBC News Presidential Historian. He is a trustee of the White House Historical Association and the National Archives Foundation and he also sits on the board of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. He was formerly a trustee of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation (Monticello), the Urban Institute, the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs and the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. He also sits on the advisory board to the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and is a former member of the President's Commission on White House Fellowships. He has served as a historian at the Smithsonian Institution, a Senior Associate Member at St. Antony's College (University of Oxford), a Visiting Scholar at the Harvard University Russian Research Center, a Senior Fellow of the Annenberg Foundation and a Montgomery Fellow and Dorsett Fellow at Dartmouth College. Beschloss has appeared on The Daily Show in 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2010. He was portrayed by Chris Kattan on NBC's Saturday Night Live on February 14, 1998.[6] He started a Twitter account, @BeschlossDC, in October 2012.[7] It appears on TIME Magazine's list of "Best Twitter Feeds of 2013". Bibliography Kennedy and Roosevelt: The Uneasy Alliance (1980); started as Beschloss's senior honors thesis at Williams College Mayday: Eisenhower, Khrushchev and the U-2 Affair (1986) Eisenhower: A Centennial Life (1990) The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960-1963 (1991) At the Highest Levels: The Inside Story of the End of the Cold War (1993); with Strobe Talbott. Taking Charge (1997) and Reaching for Glory (2001), edited transcriptions of Lyndon Johnson's conversations, as captured by his taping system, with historical annotation and commentary. A third Johnson volume is forthcoming. The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941-1945 (2002) was a New York Times bestseller for several months and was Amazon's bestselling history book of the year. Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How they Changed America, 1789-1989 (2007) was a New York Times bestseller for several months and was a #1 Washington Post bestseller. Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy (2011), introduced and annotated by Beschloss, was a #1 New York Times bestseller. Beschloss is also the editor of Washington by Meg Greenfield (2001) and Essays in Honor of James MacGregor Burns (with Thomas Cronin) (1988). President Clinton told People in December 1997 that the first audiobook he ever listened to was Taking Charge by Michael Beschloss.[13] In Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack, President George W. Bush is quoted as telling the author Elie Wiesel in February 2003, "I read your views on Auschwitz in Michael Beschloss' book", referring to The Conquerors.[14] Bush also refers to Beschloss' book "Presidential Courage" in his 2010 memoir Decision Points. John Frankenheimer's last film, Path to War (HBO, 2002), starring Donald Sutherland and Michael Gambon, was based in part on Beschloss' two books on Lyndon Johnson. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Beschloss