Speaker Biographies

Michael Barone is a resident fellow at AEI, where he researches politics, American government, and campaigns and elections. He is also a senior writer for U.S. News & World Report. Mr. Barone is the principal coauthor of the biennial Almanac of American Politics. He is also the author of Our First Revolution: The Remarkable British Upheaval That Inspired America’s Founding Fathers (Crown, 2007), and Hard America, Soft America: Competition vs. Coddling and the Competition for the Nation’s Future (Crown, 2004), and The New Americans: How the Melting Pot Can Work Again (Regnery, 2001). Over the years, Mr. Barone has written for many publications, including The Economist, the New York Times, the Detroit News, the Detroit Free Press, The Weekly Standard, The New Republic, National Review, The American Spectator, The American Enterprise, The Times Literary Supplement, and the London Daily Telegraph. He is a contributor to FOX News Channel and has appeared on many other television programs.

David S. Brown is an associate professor of history at Elizabethtown College. He is also the author of Richard Hofstadter: An Intellectual Biography (University of Chicago Press, 2006), which profiles one of America’s most distinguished postwar historians and assesses both Hofstadter’s work and its relationship to the rise and fall of the liberal New Deal order. Mr. Brown is currently completing a study of American historical writing in the “American Century” that emphasizes the contrasts and tensions between Midwestern scholars and their East Coast colleagues.

Steven F. Hayward is the F. K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow at AEI and a senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute. He is also an adjunct fellow of the John Ashbrook Center and a former Bradley Fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Mr. Hayward studies the environment, law, political economy, and the presidency. He is author of the annual Index of Leading Environmental Indicators, published jointly by the AEI Press and the Pacific Research Institute. Mr. Hayward contributes to AEI’s Environmental Policy Outlook series and has authored numerous books, including Greatness (Crown, 2005), The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order, 1964–1980 (Crown, 2001), and Churchill on Leadership: Executive Success in the Face of Adversity (Crown, 1998). He is the coauthor of the forthcoming Air Quality in America: A Dose of Reality on Air Pollution Levels, Trends, and Health Risks (AEI Press). Mr. Hayward has also had articles published in National Review, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Reason, The Weekly Standard, Policy Review, and the Chicago Tribune.

James Piereson is the president of the William E. Simon Foundation and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, where he is director of the Center for the American University. His most recent book, Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism (Encounter, 2007), argues that the liberal movement’s reaction to the assassination of John F. Kennedy caused it to lose its political dominance and intellectual coherence. His articles have appeared numerous publications, including Commentary, The New Criterion, The American Political Science Review, The Public Interest, the Journal of Politics, Philanthropy, The American Spectator, the Wall Street Journal, and The Weekly Standard. Mr. Piereson is also trustee of the William E. Simon Foundation and serves on the boards of several other organizations, including the Pinkerton Foundation, the TWS Foundation, the Center for Individual Rights, the Philanthropy Roundtable, the Foundation for Cultural Review, and Donors Trust.

View Event Details