Four experts on the American presidency examine the three times impeachment has been invoked—against Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton—and explain what it means today. Impeachment is a double-edged sword. Though it was designed to check tyrants, Thomas Jefferson also called impeachment “the most formidable weapon for the purpose of a dominant faction that was ever contrived.” On the one hand, it nullifies the will of voters, the basic foundation of all representative democracies. On the other, its absence…
Find out more »This event will feature David Levering Lewis, from New York University, as he discusses his latest book, The Improbable Wendell Wilkie: The Businessman Who Saved the Republican Party and His Country, and Conceived a New World Order. In the wake of one of the most tumultuous Republican conventions ever, the party of Lincoln nominated in 1940 a prominent businessman and former Democrat who could have saved America’s sclerotic political system. Although Wendell Lewis Willkie would lose to FDR, acclaimed biographer David Levering Lewis demonstrates that the corporate chairman–turned–presidential candidate must…
Find out more »This event will feature Erica Armstrong Dunbar, from University of Delaware, as he discusses his latest book, Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge. A startling and eye-opening look into America’s First Family, Never Caught is the powerful narrative of Ona Judge, George and Martha Washington’s runaway slave who risked everything to escape the nation’s capital and reach freedom. When George Washington was elected president, he reluctantly left his beloved Mount Vernon to serve in Philadelphia, the…
Find out more »This event will featureKyle Longley, fromArizona State University, as he discusses his latest book, LBJ's 1968: Power, Politics, and the Presidency in America's Year of Upheaval. 1968 was an unprecedented year in terms of upheaval on numerous scales: political, military, economic, social, cultural. In the United States, perhaps no one was more undone by the events of 1968 than President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Kyle Longley leads his readers on a behind-the-scenes tour of what Johnson characterized as the 'year of…
Find out more »This event will feature Marie Griffith, from Washington University in St. Louis, as she discusses her latest book, Moral Combat: How Sex Divided American Christians and Fractured American Politics. Gay marriage, transgender rights, birth control--sex is at the heart of many of the most divisive political issues of our age. The origins of these conflicts, historian R. Marie Griffith argues, lie in sharp disagreements that emerged among American Christians a century ago. From the 1920s onward, a once-solid Christian consensus…
Find out more »This event features a variety of speakers discussing the influences of military personnel after returning from their deployment. These speakers include Lindsay Chervinsky (Center for Presidential History) on the Revolutionary War, Lesley Gordon (University of Alabama) on the Civil War, Chad Williams (Brandeis University) on World War I and World War II, and Nate Packard (Marine Corps University) on the Vietnam War through the Gulf War. After the end of every American military engagement, soldiers returned to their homes, families,…
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