Speaker Series
St. John’s Speaker Series is a popular adult education offering held between services at 10:00 AM on select Sundays from September to May. Nationally noted individuals, from scholars and poets to world leaders and faith leaders, present on pressing issues of the day and impactful historical events to expand our knowledge as individuals and as a community.
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February 16, 2025

George Nash
The Presidency of Herbert Hoover
February 16, 2025
10:00am
For the second part of our annual Presidential Speaker Series, noted Hoover expert George Nash will discuss the the presidency of our 31st President, Herbert Hoover.
Dr. Nash is an authority on the life of President Herbert Hoover. Between 1975 and 1995 he lived in Iowa near the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, where he prepared three volumes of a definitive, scholarly biography under the general title The Life of Herbert Hoover (New York: W.W. Norton & Co.). He was commissioned for this project by the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Association. His biography drew upon research in hundreds of manuscript collections and archival sources in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia. His volumes are considered to be the standard works for the periods of Hoover’s life that they cover. When Volumes I and II appeared in 1983 and 1988, he presented copies to President Ronald Reagan in Oval Office ceremonies in the White House.
An independent scholar, historian, and lecturer, with specialties in twentieth century American political and intellectual history, Dr. Nash speaks and writes frequently about the history and present direction of American conservatism, the life of Herbert Hoover, the legacy of Ronald Reagan, the education of the Founding Fathers, and other subjects.
His writings have appeared in the American Spectator, Claremont Review of Books, Intercollegiate Review, Modern Age, National Review, New Criterion, New York Times Book Review, Policy Review, Tocqueville Review, University Bookman, Wall Street Journal, Weekly Standard, and many other publications. He has lectured at the Library of Congress; the National Archives; the Herbert Hoover, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson presidential libraries; the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum; the Hoover Institution; the Heritage Foundation; the McConnell Center; the National World War I Museum and Memorial; and at various universities and conferences in the United States. He has also lectured in Europe and Japan. Several of his lectures have been featured on C-SPAN. He has also been interviewed by C-SPAN, National Public Radio, numerous radio stations, and the print media. In 2006 and 2007 he delivered Hoover-related lectures in Belgium at the invitation of the U.S. Embassy in Brussels.