Lecture Date: March 24, 2016
The National Park Service 100th Anniversary Lecture
The two Presidents Roosevelt, TR and FDR, are usually considered among the most successful ever to hold that office, known mainly for their path-breaking domestic programs: TR’s Progressive “Square Deal” and FDR’s Depression-era “New Deal”; in addition, the second Roosevelt was Commander-in-Chief during the nation’s greatest foreign war. Such exploits tend to overshadow other aspects of their presidencies such as, notably, their contributions in the area of conservation and environmentalism. Indeed, Professor Douglas Brinkley will contend in his lecture that “no two Americans did more for the National Parks than these two.” This program is especially timely, as 2016 marks the 100th Anniversary of the founding of the National Park Service.
Speaker: Douglas Brinkley
Douglas Brinkley is a Professor of History at Rice University, bestselling author, and presidential historian whom CNN has described as “a man who knows more about the presidency than just about any human being alive.” He serves as a contributing editor for Vanity Fair and is a frequent contributor to The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic Monthly. No fewer than eight of Brinkley’s books have been selected as New York Times Notable Books of the Year, and each of his most recent publications have been New York Times bestsellers. He has just completed the third volume of his U.S. conservation history series, titled Rightful Heritage: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America. The first two volumes—The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America and The Quiet World: Saving Alaska’s Wilderness Kingdom, 1879 to 1960—were published in 2009 and 2011, respectively. Both were major bestsellers. Brinkley has also been actively involved in the conservation community.
Brinkley earned his bachelor’s degree at Ohio State University and received his doctorate in U.S. Diplomatic History from Georgetown University in 1989. Before coming to Rice, he taught at the U.S. Naval Academy, Princeton University, and Hofstra University; he also served as Professor of History and Director of the Roosevelt Center at Tulane University in New Orleans, and from 1994 until 2005, was Distinguished Professor of History and Director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans.