FAU Lecture: ‘The Modern Presidency from Kennedy to Trump'


By polly burks | 10/11/2017

The 2017 Florida Atlantic University John O’Sullivan Memorial Lecture presents  “The Modern Presidency from Kennedy to Trump: Intersection of Politics and Personality,” with William H. Chafe of Duke University. The lecture will take place on Wednesday, Oct. 25 at 4 p.m. in the University Theatre, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton campus. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased at www.fauevents.com, by calling 800-564-9539, or by visiting the Box Office in FAU’s Student Union, Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. FAU faculty, staff and alumni tickets are $10, and students are $5.

Chafe will examine how personality helped shape the politics of many of our modern presidents. He will look at the presidencies of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, dealing with issues as varied as the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, Watergate and the Clinton health care bill.

Chafe is the Alice Mary Baldwin Professor Emeritus of History at Duke University. He has written 13 books on American history, including a major new overview of 20th century America titled, “The Rise and Fall of the American Century,” a history of personality and politics in modern America titled “Private Lives/Public Consequences, Personality and Politics in Modern America,” and a book about the Clintons titled, “Bill and Hillary: The Politics of the Personal.”

The mission of the John O’Sullivan Memorial Lectureship has been to provide students, secondary school teachers, faculty members and public guests with exposure to a distinguished historian whose lecture/presentation broadens and deepens understanding of the major thematic and conceptual aspects of 20th century American history relevant to O’Sullivan’s specialties. Over the years, FAU has hosted scholars of World War II, the Vietnam War, the Nuclear Age, the Holocaust, modern American culture, and 20th century political and diplomatic affairs. For more information, visit www.fau.edu/osullivan.

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