Speaker

Pulitzer Prize-winning author and contributing editor at TIME, Jon Meacham is one of America's most prominent public intellectuals. Known as a skilled raconteur and an accomplished historian with a depth of knowledge about politics, religion, and current affairs, he understands and analyzes how issues and events impact modern life.

Meacham’s latest presidential biography, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, will be published in November 2012. Walter Isaacson lauded Meacham, calling the book “A true triumph. In addition to being a brilliant biography, Thomas Jefferson is a guide to the art of power…a fascinating look at how Jefferson wielded his driving desire for power and control.”

His New York Times bestseller, American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, won the Pulitzer Prize for biography. Meacham used the seventh president's unpublished correspondence and other sources to create "an unflinching portrait of a not always admirable democrat but a pivotal president, written with an agile prose that brings the Jackson saga to life.”

His other New York Times bestsellers include Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship, which explored the fascinating relationship between the two great leaders who piloted the free world to victory in World War II, and American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation.

Executive Vice President and Executive Editor at the Random House Publishing Group, Meacham is editing the PoliticoInside Election 2012 e-book series and a book by Al Gore. He is also at work on a biography of President George H.W. Bush.

Starting his career at Newsweek in 1995, Meacham served as the magazine’s managing editor from 1998 to 2006 and editor from 2006 to 2010. The New York Times called him “one of the most influential editors in the news magazine business." Now a contributing editor at TIME, he writes for the magazine’s Ideas section.

Named a “Global Leader for Tomorrow” by the World Economic Forum, he is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Society of American Historians. He is a regular guest on Morning Joe and has appeared on Meet The Press and The Colbert Report. He presents his “In Perspective” essays and conducts interviews on PBS' weekly public affairs program, Need To Know.