PROGRAM

Please join us at Roosevelt House as we welcome Richard Aldous to discuss his acclaimed book, Schlesinger: The Imperial Historian, the first major biography of the preeminent scholar and public intellectual Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., a defining figure in John F. Kennedy’s White House.

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (1917–2007), known today as one of the architects of Kennedy’s presidential legacy―and the myth of Camelot―blazed an extraordinary path from Harvard University to the West Wing. The son of a major historian―and a two-time Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner in his own right―Schlesinger redefined the art of presidential biography. A Thousand Days, his best-selling account of the Kennedy administration, remains immensely influential and cemented Schlesinger’s place as one of the nation’s greatest political image makers. He was also a pioneering biographer of Franklin D. Roosevelt and historian of the New Deal whose three-volume Age of Roosevelt remains a landmark of historical writing. 

Richard Aldous, professor of history at Bard College, will discuss Schlesinger’s legacy as one of the key figures of the 20th-century American intellectual elite. His talk takes place on the anniversary of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s birth, and will also commemorate a major event in Roosevelt House’s history: the donation to Roosevelt House of books about FDR and the presidency from Arthur Schlesinger’s personal library.