We face the most critical election of our lifetimes. That is often said. This year it seems as true as ever. Political historians Kevin Kruse and Julian Zelizer, both of Princeton University, join CPH’s Jeffrey Engel for a roundtable discussion of how 2020 looks to historians. Julian E. Zelizer is the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, Class of […]
Critical Elections in American History. Is 2020 One? Politicians claim every election is ‘the most important of our lifetime,’ but 2020 feels like it just might be. Yet Americans have faced big choices before. Professor Jeffrey A. Engel will explore the politics and drama of critical votes that seemed to their era unusually important, tracing […]
The US Constitution never established a presidential cabinet―the delegates to the Constitutional Convention explicitly rejected the idea. So how did George Washington create one of the most powerful bodies in the federal government? On November 26, 1791, George Washington convened his department secretaries―Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Henry Knox, and Edmund Randolph―for the first cabinet meeting. […]
Join the Miller Center and Southern Methodist University for a special screening of the director's cut of the VPM/Miller Center documentary "Statecraft: The Bush 41 Team." A discussion will immediately follow the screening featuring two experts from the film: Jeffrey A. Engel, director of SMU's Center for Presidential History, and Barbara Perry, director of presidential […]
While on his frequent business trips around the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Bob Damron wanted to find bars and other locales to meet other men like him. A gay man, Damron sought friends, companions, and safety at friendly businesses in the various cities he visited. He began jotting down the […]
A gripping and true story about five boys who were kidnapped in the North and smuggled into slavery in the Deep South—and their daring attempt to escape and bring their captors to justice, reminiscent of Twelve Years A Slave and Never Caught. Philadelphia, 1825: five young, free black boys fall into the clutches of the most fearsome gang […]
UPDATE, 1/8/2021: With regret, we must postpone this upcoming webinar with Derek Chollet. Derek is deeply involved with the foreign policy transition team for President-Elect Biden and can no longer make the scheduled time. We will update this page with a rescheduled date and time as soon as we are able. Thank you for your […]
Regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum, two things are clear: we are in an unprecedented constitutional crisis, and President Trump is at the center of it. In […]
A Preview Interview with Thomas Balcerski: How will the election of 2020 be remembered by history? What, if any, are its historical antecedents, and to what degree is it unprecedented? […]
A new biography published about George Washington is unlike any other. Described as “form-shattering and myth-crushing,” “keen and savage,” as well as “spirited and engaging,” historian Alexis Coe’s “You Never […]
