FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sept. 12, 2007

Presidential Historian Michael Beschloss to Headline MUW’s Welty Gala

COLUMBUS, Miss. – You may know him from his frequent television appearances, but he will be speaking in Columbus at MUW later this month.

On Thursday, Sept. 27, presidential historian Michael Beschloss will speak during the 2007 Welty Gala sponsored by Mississippi University for Women's Foundation. The event will be held at 7 p.m. in the Pope Banquet Room.

"We are delighted that Michael Beschloss will be presenting his perspective on one of the most challenging leadership roles in the world," said Dr. Gary Bouse, vice president for institutional advancement and president of the MUW Foundation. "We hope our alumni and friends will join us for a great evening at MUW."

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. 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.”

His latest book published in May is Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America, 1789-1989. 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.”

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).

Taking Charge 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, 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, started as his senior honors thesis at Williams College. Mayday: Eisenhower, Khrushchev and the U-2 Affair, was called “a grand narrative. . .crowded with well-drawn portraits” by the New Yorker. The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960-1963, won the Ambassador Book Prize and was called by the New Yorker the "definitive" history of John Kennedy and the Cold War.

Beschloss 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.

The Robert M. Hearin Support Foundation is the major sponsor of the Welty Series of events this fall and is providing funding for students and faculty in the Ina E. Gordy Honors College to attend the Welty Gala.

Tickets begin at $75 per person. Patron tickets are $500 per person and include a private reception with Beschloss. Benefactor tables are available at $5,000 each and include premium seating for eight along with admission to the private reception with Beschloss. Proceeds benefit the endowment for the Eudora Welty Chair in Humanities.

For more information, contact Mary Margaret Roberts at (662) 329-7151 or email giving@muw.edu.