Michael Beschloss
Historian
United States presidency
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Early life[edit]
Beschloss was born in Chicago, grew up in Flossmoor, Illinois, and was educated at Eaglebrook School, Phillips Academy (Andover, MA), Williams College and Harvard University.[6] He majored in political science, studying under James MacGregor Burns at Williams,[7] from which he graduated with Highest Honors, and earned an MBA at Harvard Business School, with the original intention of writing history while serving as a foundation executive.[8]
Career[edit]
Beschloss has been a frequent commentator on the PBS NewsHour and is the NBC News Presidential Historian. He is a trustee of the White House Historical Association and the National Archives Foundation[9] and he also sits on the board of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. He has been a trustee of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation (Monticello), the Urban Institute, the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs[10] and the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. He also sat on the advisory board to the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and was a member of the President's Commission on White House Fellowships. He has held appointments in history at the Smithsonian Institution,[11] as a Senior Associate Member at St. Antony's College (University of Oxford),[11] a visiting scholar at the Harvard University Russian Research Center,[11] a Senior Fellow of the Annenberg Foundation, and a Montgomery Fellow and Dorsett Fellow at Dartmouth College. Since 2014, he has been chair of the annual Robert F. Kennedy Book Awards.
Beschloss has appeared on The Daily Show in 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2010. He was portrayed by Chris Kattan on NBC's Saturday Night Live on February 14, 1998.[12]
He started a Twitter account, @BeschlossDC, in October 2012.[13][3] It appears on Time magazine's list of "Best Twitter Feeds of 2013".[14] He also has contributed columns on history under the title HistorySource to The New York Times.[15]
Beschloss is also the editor of Washington by Meg Greenfield (2001) and Essays in Honor of James MacGregor Burns (with Thomas Cronin) (1988).
Awards[edit]
Beschloss received a 2005 News & Documentary Emmy Award for the Discovery Channel's Decisions That Shook the World, of which he was the host; the category was "Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Research". He has also received the Williams College Bicentennial Medal,[16] the State of Illinois's Order of Lincoln (the State's Highest Honor), the Harry S. Truman Public Service Award, the Ambassador Book Award, the Rutgers University Living History Award, the New York State Archives History Award, the Founders Award of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and the Phillips Academy Andover Alumni Award of Distinction. He has received honorary doctorates from Lafayette College, Williams College, St. Mary's College of Maryland, Saint Peter's College, Governors State University and Allegheny College.[10]
Michael Beschloss was inducted as a Laureate of The Lincoln Academy of Illinois and awarded the Order of Lincoln (the State's highest honor) by the Governor of Illinois in 2004 in the area of Communications and Education.[17] In October 2022, with a ceremony at the National Archives in Washington DC, Beschloss received the National Archives' annual Records of Achievement Award.
In 2019, Beschloss received The Lincoln Forum's Richard Nelson Current Award of Achievement.[18]
Personal life[edit]
Beschloss is the son of the late Ruth and Morris Beschloss, who was a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany. He has two sons with his Iranian-born wife Afsaneh Mashayekhi Beschloss.[11][9] His wife is president and CEO of the Rock Creek Group, a Washington, D.C. investment firm, former treasurer and chief investment officer of the World Bank, a past trustee of the Ford Foundation, PBS and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and a current trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation, the World Resources Institute and the Institute for Advanced Study. Their son Dr. Alexander Beschloss (born 1994), is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Their son Cyrus Beschloss (born 1996) is a graduate of Stanford Journalism School and the founder of The Generation Lab, which surveys and analyzes young people aged 18 to 34. The couple are advisory board members of Resources for Inner City Children.[19]
Co-authored Books
Edited Books
Edited transcriptions of Lyndon B. Johnson's conversations, as captured by his taping system, with historical annotation and commentary. A third Johnson volume is forthcoming.
Reception[edit]
President Bill Clinton told People in December 1997 that the first audiobook he ever listened to was Taking Charge by Michael Beschloss.[20] In Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack, President George W. Bush is quoted as telling the author Elie Wiesel in February 2003, "I read your views on Auschwitz in Michael Beschloss' book", referring to The Conquerors.[21] Bush also refers to Beschloss' book Presidential Courage in his 2010 memoir Decision Points.[22]
John Frankenheimer's last film, Path to War (HBO, 2002), starring Donald Sutherland and Michael Gambon, was based in part on Beschloss' two books on Lyndon B. Johnson.