Presidential Historian H.W. ‘Bill’ Brands Speaks at GVSU Wednesday Night

The Prez: Machiavelli visits The White House. What, Machiavelli? The White House?

For centuries the name Machiavelli has been synonymous with amoral calculation in politics. And, believe me, no American president would ever want to be described as Machiavellian. Yet should the canny Florentine return to life and visit twenty-first century America, he would have some useful and surprising advice for our chief executive – advice that would say as much about the United States as about the country’s highest office.

Presidential historian and Hauenstein Center keynoter H.W. "Bill" Brands returns to Grand Rapids and Grand Valley State University, for a conversation about power and the presidency on Wednesday night (Dec. 10) at the L.V. Eberhard Center on the downtown campus of GVSU.

Brands will be speaking from 7 to 8:30 p.m. The event is free, in partnership with the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum, and Foundation.

Brands holds the Jack S. Blanton Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin. Brands has written prolifically on U.S. history and the American presidency. His books, Andrew Jackson, The Man Who Saved the Union, and Traitor to His Class will be available for purchase at a signing following the keynote, and would make great holiday gifts! His biography of President Ronald Reagan, titled Reagan: The Life, is forthcoming from Doubleday in June, 2015.

To make sure you have a seat, RSVP to this free event at http://www.hauensteincenter.org/rsvp