How the Best Did It: Leadership Lessons From Our Top Presidents

Event Status
Scheduled
Cover of "How the Best Did It" by Talmage Boston

On Thursday, April 11, the Clements Center for National Security, the LBJ Presidential Library and the UT-Austin History Department will host Talmage Boston, historian and partner at the Dallas law firm Shackelford, Bowen, McKinley & Norton, LLP, for a book talk on his upcoming release How the Best Did It: Leadership Lessons From Our Top Presidents. Join us at 12:15 pm in Bass Lecture Hall at the LBJ School of Public Affairs.


Talmage Boston is a well-known figure among leading historians as an author, speaker, and onstage interviewer. His work has been endorsed by David McCullough, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jon Meacham, Douglas Brinkley, Annette-Gordon-Reed, Evan Thomas, and H.W. Brands, as well as many other esteemed presidential biographers.

Boston is the author of Cross-Examining History (foreword by Ken Burns), Raising the Bar (foreword by former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh), Baseball and the Baby Boomer (foreword by Frank Deford), and 1939: Baseball’s Tipping Point (foreword by John Grisham). He is also one of the most highly recognized lawyers in Texas, having been chosen for three major statewide awards in the last four years by the Texas Bar Foundation and the State Bar of Texas’ Litigation Section. Boston has been named a “Texas Super Lawyer” by Thompson Reuters every year since 2003, and among the “Best Lawyers in America” every year since 2013. He is the only lawyer to receive a “Presidential Citation” from eight different presidents of the State Bar of Texas for outstanding service to the State Bar.

Working as both a full-time commercial litigator and a full-time historian throughout the twenty-first century, Boston’s varied experience and notable achievements in both fields make him uniquely qualified to write How the Best Did It due to his knowledge of history, his skills as a writer, and his vast experience in business and law. In November 2023, Boston was recognized by the Dallas Historical Society as “The History Maker of the Year” in the field of promoting history in North Texas.

Boston lives in Dallas with his wife Claire, son Scott, daughter Lindsey, son-in-law Mitchell, and his two grandsons. To learn more, visit his website at talmageboston.com.

Date and Time
April 11, 2024, 12:15 to 1:30 p.m.