Introduction of Jon Meacham: presidential historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, by Brian Napack: president and CEO at Wiley. Jon Meacham is one of America's most prominent public intellectuals. A contributor to TIME and The New York Times Book Review, Meacham is a highly sought-after commentator, regularly appearing on CNN and MSNBC. The Ultimate Choice: Lessons from History of Epic Presidential Races. In this nonpartisan presentation, Jon Meacham explains the dynamics of 2020 by looking back at the seminal elections that have shaped us throughout history, including Lincoln’s narrow win in 1860; the ideology divided four-way campaign of 1948; the razor-thin Kennedy-Nixon contest of 1960; the tumult of 1968; and Ronald Reagan’s late-breaking surge in 1980.