A. Scott Berg to speak at Wilson Library Annual Luncheon

Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner A. Scott Berg will be the 2013 Annual Luncheon Speaker at the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum on Friday, Nov. 8 at noon at the Stonewall Jackson Hotel and Conference Center in Staunton.

For over a decade, Berg, the author of best-selling biographies of Katharine Hepburn and Charles Lindbergh, has been working on his biography of Woodrow Wilson. The book titled “Wilson,” is a fresh look at one of America’s most important and influential presidents.

Filled with new insight and detail, “Wilson” is not only a magnificent biography of a great and often misunderstood President whose ideas and ideals promise to endure for centuries to come, but a riveting narrative that spans seven crucial decades of American history, and above all a deeply emotional exploration of the entirety of Woodrow Wilson’s life – his dreams, his accomplishments, his affairs of the heart, and his all-too-human failings.

Perhaps ironically, as Berg contends, Wilson’s presidency in many ways parallels the issues of today’s current administration: a country divided by ideology, region, and class; storm clouds on the international horizon that threaten an ambitious domestic agenda; and a desire to guide progressive social and economic legislation through a gridlocked Congress. Both Obama and Congress could draw vital lessons from Wilson, Berg maintains, namely, the importance of meeting regularly, sustained dialogue, and the necessity of putting aside partisan differences in the face of a grave threat, whether it be a foreign enemy or the national debt.

This year’s luncheon marks the 53rd anniversary of the Foundation’s first Annual Luncheon, at which President Dwight E. Eisenhower spoke. The luncheon program was started by Emily Pancake Smith, a founding Trustee and long-time President of the Woodrow Wilson Birthplace Foundation.