Walter Isaacson, acclaimed author of the biographies Steve Jobs and Benjamin Franklin: An American Life and professor of history at Tulane, will speak at Vanderbilt’s Langford Auditorium on Thursday, Dec. 5, in conversation with Jon Meacham, co-chair of the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy. The discussion will range from the art of historical biography and Isaacson’s most recent biography of Elon Musk, to mis/disinformation.
This event is co-sponsored by Dialogue Vanderbilt and the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries. Copies of Isaacsons’s book Elon Musk will be available for purchase at the event through Parnassus Books.
In addition to being an author and professor, Walter Isaacson is an advisory partner at Perella Weinberg, a financial services firm based in New York City. He has been the CEO of the Aspen Institute and CNN and the editor of Time magazine. Isaacson’s most recent biography, Elon Musk (2023), is an intimate chronicle based on spending two years by Musk’s side. Isaacson is also a member of the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy Advisory Board.
Jon Meacham, professor of political science at Vanderbilt and Carolyn T. and Robert M. Rogers Chair in American Presidency, is a renowned presidential historian, contributing writer to The New York Times Book Review, contributing editor at Time and a Pulitzer Prize–winning author.
