Presidential historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham will deliver a free lecture at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, March 29, in Schwab Auditorium on the University Park campus.

In this nonpartisan, anecdotally rich presentation, Meacham describes previous moments of crisis and partisan deadlock in American history and suggests how previous generations – and we, in our own time – transcended hours of fear by heeding what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.” Examples range from Reconstruction and President Grant to woman’s suffrage and President Wilson to the crisis of the 1930s and FDR and the passage of civil rights legislation under LBJ.

Meacham is one of America’s most prominent public intellectuals. A contributor to TIME and the New York Times Book Review, Meacham is a highly sought-after commentator, regularly appearing on MSNBC, CNN, and other news outlets. A skilled orator with a depth of knowledge about politics, religion, and current affairs, Meacham has the unique ability to bring history to life and offer historical context to current events and issues impacting our daily lives – whether we realize it or not – to audiences of all backgrounds and levels of understanding.

Meacham is the author of multiple New York Times bestsellers including His Truth is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope, Songs of America, The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels, Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship, and American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House for which he won a 2009 Pulitzer Prize.

The event is hosted by the Center for Character, Conscience, and Public Purpose, a unit of Penn State Student Affairs, and co-sponsored by the Presidential Leadership Academy, the McCourtney Institute for Democracy, the Paterno Fellows, and the Center for Spiritual and Ethical Development, also a unit of Student Affairs.

For more information contact the Center for Character, Conscience, and Public Purpose at thecenter@psu.edu or (814) 867-6402.