Neal Gabler in conversation with David Alpern

In Against the Wind, acclaimed biographer Neal Gabler tackles the contradictions inherent in Ted Kennedy, a man riven by deep personal flaws who nevertheless was, as one observer put it, “publicly moral,” sincerely committed to making a better, more compassionate world. As a young senator and the heir to his brothers’ crusades, he tackled with the liberal wind. But with America’s tectonic shift toward conservatism begun by Nixon and completed by Reagan, Kennedy was forced to sail against the wind, using his formidable and hard-won legislative prowess in defense of communal responsibility when it had been displaced by a valorization of individual responsibility.

Bio:

Neal Gabler is the author of five books: An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood; Winchell: Gossip, Power and the Culture of Celebrity; Life: the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality; Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination; and, most recently, Barbra Streisand: Redefining Beauty, Femininity, and Power for the Yale Jewish Lives series. His essays and articles have appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines, including The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Esquire, Playboy, Newsweek, and Vogue, and he has been the recipient of two Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, Time magazine’s nonfiction book of the year, USA Today’s biography of the year, a National Book Critics Circle nomination, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Public Policy Scholarship at the Woodrow Wilson Center, a Shorenstein Fellowship at the Harvard Kennedy School, and a Patrick Henry Fellowship at Washington College’s CV Starr Center. He has also served as the chief nonfiction judge of the National Book Awards. Gabler is currently a professor for the MFA program at Stonybrook Southampton.

This is a hybrid event. Join us in person in the Baldwin Room or online via Zoom. A Zoom meeting ID and password will be emailed to all participants 15 minutes prior to the start of the event.