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Leadership Secrets of Washington and Lincoln: How to be a Uniter in Divided Times
They are America's two greatest presidents. But what qualities made George Washington and Abraham Lincoln such extraordinary leaders? Drawing on his books Washington's Farewell and Lincoln & the Fight for Peace, JOHN AVLON distils their different leadership styles to common themes, particularly a wise balance between moral courage and moderation. Both men led by word and action. Washington helped forge our new nation's character with the example of his character. Lincoln preached "malice toward none" even at the height of the Civil War out of his determination to achieve reconciliation and reunification. They were loved and hated in their time, but they never lost faith that there is always more that unites us than divides us as Americans.
Reality Check: Americans Are Less Divided Than We Seem
Bestselling author and CNN Senior Analyst JOHN AVLON delivers a reasoned approach to the politics of problem-solving, offering a unique centrist perspective on the current state of politics in the U.S. Heralded for his solutions-oriented approach, Avlon’s expertise spans politics, journalism, and discourse while informing and entertaining audiences.
The Future of Journalism
Acclaimed commentator JOHN AVLON has produced award-winning journalism across mediums and shares keen insights about the future of journalism in this wide-ranging talk. Drawing on his anthologies Deadline Artists and his tenure as the Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Beast, Avlon offers a substantial view of the state of journalism and how it will shape business, politics, and culture in the future.
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John Avlon is an award-winning journalist, author, news anchor and media executive. He is a former CNN senior political analyst and anchor, editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast, and the 2024 Democratic congressional nominee in New York’s First District. He currently hosts a solutions journalism podcast on The Bulwark called How to Fix It, and serves as the Chairman of Citizens Union, New York’s oldest good government group.
Avlon has published six books including Lincoln and the Fight for Peace and Washington’s Farewell. In his twenties, Avlon served as chief speechwriter to New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. After the attacks of September 11th, 2001, he and his team were responsible for writing the eulogies for the firefighters and police officers murdered in the destruction of the World Trade Center. Avlon’s essay on the attacks, “The Resilient City” was selected to conclude the anthology Empire City: New York through the Centuries and won acclaim as “the single best essay written in the wake of 9/11.”
In 2012, Avlon won the National Society of Newspaper Columnists award for best online columnist. From 2013 to 2018, he was the editor-in-chief and managing director of The Daily Beast, during which time the site’s traffic more than doubled to over one million readers a day while winning 17 journalism awards. In
2023, Avlon’s CNN digital series “Reality Check” won the New York Press Club award for best TV commentary.
His first book, Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics was described by Barron’s as “a rewarding portrait of a political trend the established parties have tried to ignore” and hailed as “the best political book ever on American centrist voters.”
Wingnuts: How The Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America was praised by President Bill Clinton, who said, “Wingnuts offers a clear and comprehensive review of the forces on the outer edges of the political spectrum that shape and distort our political debate. Shedding more heat than light they drive frustrated alienated citizens away from the reasoned discourse that can produce real solutions to our problems.”
The two Deadline Artists anthologies, which Avlon co-edited with Jesse Angelo and Errol Louis won acclaim from the Washington Post as “one of the greatest collections of newspaper articles ever compiled” while the American Journalism Review described it as “the most addictive journalism book ever.”
Washington’s Farewell won acclaim as “a fantastic contribution to our national literature” by historian Doug Brinkley and “a thoughtful consideration of Washington’s wisdom that couldn’t be timelier” in a starred review by Kirkus Reviews.
Lincoln & the Fight for Peace was praised by The New York Times as “a Lincoln for our polarized times…powerful and affecting” and named one of the best books of the year by Vanity Fair and Foreign Affairs.
Avlon has appeared multiple times on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Real Time with Bill Maher, and The Daily Show as well as CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, NPR and C-Span. He has been interviewed in documentaries including CNN’s Lincoln: Divided We Stand, the History Channel’s Washington series and HBO’s Breslin and Hamill: Deadline Artists. An advocate for building a vital center in American politics, he has spoken at the Kennedy School of Government, and universities and civic organizations around the nation.
He is the chairman of Citizens Union of New York and serves as the co-president of the Steinbeck Writer’s Retreat in Sag Harbor, New York. He is on the Board of Governors of The Overseas Press Club and the advisory board of the Theodore Roosevelt Association. In 2010, Avlon was a co-founder of No Labels – a group of Democrats, Republicans and Independents that created the Problem-Solvers Caucus in Congress.
In a profile, author Stephen Marshall wrote “Avlon talks about politics the way ESPN anchors wrap up sports highlights.” Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker wrote, “Americans who are fed up with the Ann Coulter/Michael Moore school of debate and are looking for someone to articulate a commonsense, middle path, may have found their voice in John Avlon.”
Avlon is a graduate of Yale University and Columbia Business School. He is married to Margaret Hoover, the host of PBS’s Firing Line. The New York Times says, “Their telegenic union may be a lesson in overcoming the orthodoxies that divide us.” They live in Sag Harbor New York with their son, Jack and daughter, Toula Lou.
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