Michael Beschloss
Michael Beschloss is an award-winning historian and the author of eight books -- most recently, the acclaimed New York Times best-seller The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941-1945.
His current book is Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America, 1789-1989. In the first review of Presidential Courage, Kirkus Reviews writes, “Engrossing. . .marvelous. . .and judicious. . .History written with subtlety, verve and an almost novelistic appreciation for the complexities of human nature and Presidential politics.” First printing of Presidential Courage is 250,000, with an excerpt in Newsweek.
Newsweek has called Beschloss “the nation's leading Presidential historian.” He serves as NBC News Presidential Historian—the first time any major network has created such a position—and appears regularly on Meet the Press, Today, and all NBC network programs. He is a regular on PBS’s The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. In 2005, he won an Emmy for his role in creating the Discovery Channel series Decisions that Shook the World, of which he was the host.
Beschloss was born in Chicago in 1955. An alumnus of Williams College, he also has an advanced degree from the Harvard Business School. He has been an historian on the staff of the Smithsonian Institution (1982-1986), a Senior Associate Member at Oxford University in England (1986-1987), and a Senior Fellow of the Annenberg Foundation in Washington, D.C. (1988-1996).
Of The Conquerors (Simon & Schuster, 2002), the New York Times Book Review said in a front-page review that the “vigorously written" book was "history as it was spoken at the time, and there is not a dull page.” The book was a New York Times bestseller for three months and was Amazon’s bestselling history book of the year.
Taking Charge (Simon & Schuster, 1997) was Beschloss's first volume on President Lyndon Johnson’s newly released secret tapes. The Wall Street Journal called it “sheer marvelous history,” the New York Times editorial page “an important event.” The sequel, Reaching for Glory (Simon & Schuster, 2001), was called “an incomparable portrait of a President at work” by the New York Times Book Review. Both books were national best sellers.
Beschloss’s first book, Kennedy and Roosevelt: The Uneasy Alliance (Norton, 1980), started as his senior honors thesis at Williams College. Mayday: Eisenhower, Khrushchev and the U-2 Affair (Harper, 1986), was called “a grand narrative. . .crowded with well-drawn portraits” by the New Yorker. The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960-1963 (HarperCollins, 1991), won the Ambassador Book Prize and was called by the New Yorker the "definitive" history of John Kennedy and the Cold War.
Beschloss holds honorary doctorates from Williams College and St. Mary’s College (Maryland) and will be commencement speaker and receive an honorary doctorate from Lafayette College in May 2007. He has also received the State of Illinois’s Order of Lincoln and the Harry S. Truman Public Service Award from Independence, Missouri. He is a trustee of the White House Historical Association, the National Archives Foundation and the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and their two sons.
Michael Beschloss is an award-winning historian and the author of eight books -- most recently, the acclaimed New York Times best-seller The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941-1945.
His current book is Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America, 1789-1989. In the first review of Presidential Courage, Kirkus Reviews writes, “Engrossing. . .marvelous. . .and judicious. . .History written with subtlety, verve and an almost novelistic appreciation for the complexities of human nature and Presidential politics.” First printing of Presidential Courage is 250,000, with an excerpt in Newsweek.
Newsweek has called Beschloss “the nation's leading Presidential historian.” He serves as NBC News Presidential Historian—the first time any major network has created such a position—and appears regularly on Meet the Press, Today, and all NBC network programs. He is a regular on PBS’s The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. In 2005, he won an Emmy for his role in creating the Discovery Channel series Decisions that Shook the World, of which he was the host.
Beschloss was born in Chicago in 1955. An alumnus of Williams College, he also has an advanced degree from the Harvard Business School. He has been an historian on the staff of the Smithsonian Institution (1982-1986), a Senior Associate Member at Oxford University in England (1986-1987), and a Senior Fellow of the Annenberg Foundation in Washington, D.C. (1988-1996).
Of The Conquerors (Simon & Schuster, 2002), the New York Times Book Review said in a front-page review that the “vigorously written" book was "history as it was spoken at the time, and there is not a dull page.” The book was a New York Times bestseller for three months and was Amazon’s bestselling history book of the year.
Taking Charge (Simon & Schuster, 1997) was Beschloss's first volume on President Lyndon Johnson’s newly released secret tapes. The Wall Street Journal called it “sheer marvelous history,” the New York Times editorial page “an important event.” The sequel, Reaching for Glory (Simon & Schuster, 2001), was called “an incomparable portrait of a President at work” by the New York Times Book Review. Both books were national best sellers.
Beschloss’s first book, Kennedy and Roosevelt: The Uneasy Alliance (Norton, 1980), started as his senior honors thesis at Williams College. Mayday: Eisenhower, Khrushchev and the U-2 Affair (Harper, 1986), was called “a grand narrative. . .crowded with well-drawn portraits” by the New Yorker. The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960-1963 (HarperCollins, 1991), won the Ambassador Book Prize and was called by the New Yorker the "definitive" history of John Kennedy and the Cold War.
Beschloss holds honorary doctorates from Williams College and St. Mary’s College (Maryland) and will be commencement speaker and receive an honorary doctorate from Lafayette College in May 2007. He has also received the State of Illinois’s Order of Lincoln and the Harry S. Truman Public Service Award from Independence, Missouri. He is a trustee of the White House Historical Association, the National Archives Foundation and the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and their two sons.
