Kurt Viermetz Lecture

George H.W. Bush and the American Century: A Biographer’s Reflections

We regret that this event has been cancelled due to public health concerns with COVID-19. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your understanding.

Raised in privilege, decorated in war, adventurous in business, gracious in manner, and dogged in politics, George Herbert Walker Bush embodied a powerful American consensus about the nation’s role in the world as the Cold War came to an end and a divisively partisan culture took root in Washington. As Bush’s biographer, presidential historian Jon Meacham was granted unconditional access to the forty-first President’s diaries, files, and family—including his wife Barbara Bush’s decades-long personal diary. The result was the bestselling Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush (2015), an intimate portrait of the possibilities of power, blessings of opportunity, and the perils of a perennially raucous democracy.