Honorary Advisory Board Member: Jon Meacham

Jon Meacham is a much lauded and widely renowned historian with a concentration on American historical subjects who is also a distinguished visiting professor at Vanderbilt University.

He is revered for his insightful presidential biographies . Meacham was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his best-selling book on Andrew Jackson’s presidency, American Lion in 2009. His 2015 book His Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush was a #1 New York Times bestseller.

Meacham’s other New York Times best sellers include: The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels, published in 2018, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power published 2012, Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship, published 2003, American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation published 2006, and most recently His Truth is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope; and The Hope of Glory, published in 2020.

Originally from Chattanooga, Tennessee, he began his journalistic career at The Chattanooga Times, and was the editor of The Washington Monthly before moving to Newsweek in 1995. After serving as Managing Editor of that magazine for eight years, Meacham was Editor-in-Chief from 2006 to 2010. He is a former Executive Editor at Random House, where he published the letters of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and books of many highly regarded authors including Al Gore, John Danforth, Clara Bingham, Mary Soames, and Charles Peters.

Lee C. Bollinger, President of Columbia University, presents the 2009 Biography prize to Meacham.

He is a contributing writer to the New York Times Book Review and a contributing editor of Time. He has written for such varied periodicals as the New York Times op-ed page, the Washington Post, Vanity Fair, and Garden & Gun. In addition to his written work, Meacham is also a regular guest on “Morning Joe'' and other broadcasts for his sought after commentary on history, politics, and religion in America.  

Meacham is a fellow of the Society of American Historians and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a trustee of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, The McCallie School, and The Harpeth Hall School. Meacham chairs the National Advisory Council of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University. He has served on the vestries of St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue and of Trinity Church Wall Street as well as the Board of Regents of The University of the South.

The Anti-Defamation League awarded Meacham its Hubert H. Humphrey First Amendment Prize. In 2013 the Historical Society of Pennsylvania presented him with its Founder’s Award; in 2016 he was honored with the Sandra Day O’Connor Institute’s Spirit of Democracy Award. Meacham also received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University in 2005 and holds honorary doctorates from Middlebury College, Wake Forest University, the University of Tennessee, Dickinson College, Sewanee, and several other institutions.

A summa cum laude graduate of the University of the South, he lives in Nashville and in Sewanee with his wife and children.

Meacham spoke about The Role of Religion in the 2008 Campaign at The Common Good alongside Amy Sullivan and Steven Waldman, and at The Common Good American Spirit Awards and Forum 2021 where he received  The Common Good American Spirit Award for Thought Leadership in 2021. 

He is currently a member of The Common Good Honorary Advisory Board.

Selected Media:

https://www.msnbc.com/11th-hour/watch/jon-meacham-with-joe-biden-what-you-see-is-what-you-get-109177413591 

https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/watch/jon-meacham-asks-are-republicans-going-to-govern-or-perpetually-campaign-for-trump-s-america-101541445925 

https://www.msnbc.com/11th-hour/watch/meacham-is-this-a-chapter-in-an-unfolding-story-or-the-last-chapter-99181125696 

Meacham’s Podcasts:  “Hope Through History”, a documentary style podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hope-through-history/id1507276251, “It Was Said”, which analyzes important speeches of the past: https://www.history.com/it-was-said-podcast 

Alex Henderson, ‘Jon Meacham: How the Founding Fathers anticipated Donald Trump’, Salon, 5 July 2019

‘“Songs of America”: Tim McGraw & Jon Meacham trace history through music’, MSNBC, 16 June 2019

Twitter: @jmeacham

Honorary Advisory Board Member: Douglas Brinkley

Douglas Brinkley is one of the most prominent historians in the U.S. — and CNN's presidential historian - having charted American history and significant figures for decades. He is also the official Presidential Historian for The New York Historical Society, an essayist, and a prolific and renowned biographer. He has published over three dozen highly acclaimed books, including many discerning biographies  and shrewdly edited collections of presidents and presidential records.  His subjects have ranged from Presidents Teddy Roosevelt, JFK, FDR, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Richard Nixon to the life of Rosa Parks, Hurricane Katrina, the space race and American Catholicism.  

Currently, Brinkley is an esteemed professor at Rice University as the Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair in Humanities and Professor of History,  He is also a member of the Century Association, Council of Foreign Relations and the James Madison Council of the Library of Congress. His early teaching career included positions at the U.S. Naval Academy, Princeton, and Hofstra University. At Hofstra, he spearheaded an acclaimed American Odyssey course which took students across the country in a sleeper bus, visiting historical sites and meeting with cultural icons and is the subject of his travelogue The Majic Bus.

“America’s New Past Master” - The Chicago Tribune

During his tenure at the University of New Orleans as Professor of History and Director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies, he wrote two books with Stephen E. Ambrose: Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938 and The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation: From the Louisiana Purchase to Today. In 2005, he became a Tulane University Distinguished Professor of History and the Director of the Roosevelt Center, where he taught courses on U.S. foreign policy, published several books on American culture, and edited Jack Kerouac’s diaries. 

Brinkley is also actively involved in the environmental conservation and historic preservation communities. He has held board or leadership advisory roles in support of the American Museum of Natural History, Yellowstone Park Foundation, National Audubon Society, and the Rockefeller-Roosevelt Conservation Roundtable. In 2015 he was awarded the Robin W. Winks Award for Enhancing Public Understanding of National Parks by the National Parks Conservation Association. In 2016 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service honored him with their annual Heritage Award.

Six of his books have been selected as New York Times Notable Books of the Year.His most recent book, American Moonshot:  John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race, was a New York Times bestseller. His book The Great Deluge covers more recent history, offering a careful chronicle of Hurricane Katrina through the eyes of its survivors, and received the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for writing which reflects RFK’s concern for the powerless and his struggle for even-handed justice. His two-volume annotated The Nixon Tapes won the Arthur S. Link – Warren F. Kuehl Prize. His book, Cronkite, draws upon letters, diaries, and artifacts from the Cronkite Archive to offer a personal portrait of the famed news anchor, won the Sperber Prize for outstanding biographies in the field of journalism. Brinkley has also received a Grammy Award for the Jazz ensemble album Presidential Suite, as well as seven honorary doctorates in American Studies. 

[Brinkley with actor Sean Penn (left) helping with relief work in the wake of Hurricane Katrina] 

[Brinkley, wife Anne and daughter Cassady, with John Lewis on the Edmund Pettus Bridge]

Brinkley with Author Kurt Vonnegut, 1994

A graduate of The Ohio State University and Georgetown University, Brinkley lives in Austin, Texas with his wife and three children.  

The Common Good was pleased to host him on several occasions in the past, including Assessing the Presidency with Lesley Stahl, Douglas Brinkley, Jonathan Alter and Ed Rollins on April 11th, 2013 and in 2018 alongside Roger Cohen, David Frum, Dana Perino, and Ed Rollins at the “Trump – Year One” Panel.

Brinkley currently serves as a member of The Common Good Honorary Advisory Board. 

Twitter: @ProfDBrinkley 

DouglasBrinkley.com

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Selected Media:

• Brinkley for The New York Times: President Trump, Please Read 'Desert Solitaire' 

• Mary Frances Berry and Brinkley on PBS's Firing Line 

• Brinkley on Donald Trump's legacy for CNN 

• Articles Listed: http://douglasbrinkley.com/articles/ 

Books Published: 

• American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race, 2019

• JKF: A Vision For America, 2018

• Rightful Heritage: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America 2016 

• The Nixon Tapes : 1971-1972 and The Nixon Tapes: 1973, 2015, with coauthor Luke A. Nichter

• Cronkite, 2012

• The Quiet World: Saving Alaska’s Wilderness Kingdom, 1879-1960, 2011

• The Notes: Ronald Reagan's Private Collection of Stories and Wisdom, 2011

• Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938 9th edition with Stephen Ambrose, 2010

• The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America, 2009

• Gerald R. Ford, The American Presidents Series, 2007

• The Ronald Reagan Diaries, Edited by Brinkley, 2007

• Kerouac: Road Novels 1957-1960, selected journals edited by Brinkley, 2007 

• The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, 2006

• Parish Priest: Father Michael McGivney and American Catholicism, 2006

• Rosa Parks: A Life,  2005

• Voices of Courage: The Battle for Khe Sanh, Vietnam, with co-author Ronald Drez, 2005

• The Boys of Pointe Du Hoc: Ronald Reagan, D-Day, and the U.S. Army 2nd Ranger Battalion, 2005

• Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War, 2004

• Voices of Valor: D-Day: June 6, 1944, words and recorded voices of those who served at D-Day, edited by Brinkley, 2004

• Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company, and a Century of Progress, 2003

• The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation: From the Louisiana Purchase to Today, with Stephen Ambrose, 2002 

• Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, collected letters of Hunter S. Thompson, edited by Brinkley, 2000

• Witness to America: An Illustrated Documentary of the History of the United States from the Revolution to D-Day, 1999

• The Unfinished Presidency: Jimmy Carter’s Journey Beyond the White House, 1998

• American Heritage: History of the United States, 1998

• Hunter S. Thompson: The Proud Highway, Saga of a Distemperate Southern Gentleman 1955-1967, collected letters, edited by Brinkley, 1997

• FDR and the Creation of the U.N., 1997

• The Majic Bus: An American Odyssey 1993

• Dean Acheson: The Cold War Years, 1953-71 1992

• Driven Patriot: The Life and Times of James Forrestal, 1992

More can be found at http://douglasbrinkley.com/all-books/