Author, historian to speak Tuesday at Aurora University

Michael Beschloss, acclaimed presidential historian and author, will present "Presidential Courage: Comments and Context about the 2008 Presidential Campaign," at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 30 at Aurora University.

Part of the 2008-09 Celebrating Arts and Ideas series at the university, the program is free to the public in Crimi Auditorium at the Institute for Collaboration, 407 S. Calumet Ave. in Aurora.

The program is presented by AU and the Community Foundation of the Fox River Valley. Seating is limited and reservations are required. Call (630) 844-4924, e-mail artsandideas@aurora.edu, or visit www.aurora.edu.

In a presentation based on his book, "Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America, 1789-1989" (Simon and Schuster, 2007), Beschloss will discuss crucial times when courageous presidents took such risks and overcame obstacles to dramatically change the future of the U.S.

What makes a great U.S. president? Beschloss says the answer is presidential courage: the willingness to take a political risk that might end a president's career - and the wisdom to do that for reasons that later Americans will admire.

Beschloss is an award-winning historian and the author of eight books - including, the acclaimed New York Times best seller "The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941-1945."

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 (1982-86), a senior associate member at Oxford University in England (1986-87), and a senior fellow of the Annenberg Foundation in Washington, D.C. (1988-96).

"Taking Charge" (1997) was Beschloss's first volume on President Lyndon Johnson's newly released secret tapes. The sequel, "Reaching for Glory" (2001), was called "an incomparable portrait of a President at work" by The New York Times Book Review. Both books were national best sellers.