Alumni Hall

If we want a better understanding of our current leaders in the United States, we should look back at the first Tudor king of England, who died 500 years ago.

That is the message to be delivered in a stimulating, visual presentation by Dr. Mark R. Horowitz on February 18 at 7:00 p.m. in the Alumni Hall at the College of Charleston. The program is free to the public and will be followed by a reception. It is being sponsored by the College of Charleston Departments of History and Political Science and the School of Business and Economics at the College.

Dr. Horowitz is in a unique position to compare and contrast the challenges and actions of Henry VII of England (died 1509) with the activities and philosophies of former President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama. A historian and scholar specializing in late-medieval and early-Tudor England, he has researched and published articles in scholarly journals and delivered papers at history conferences. He earned degrees from Tulane University, the University of Illinois and the University of Chicago, and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

But Horowitz is also a business executive, marketing consultant and news commentator. Prior to starting his own companies, he was a Senior Vice President/Group Executive at the lead marketing communications firm of a $12.4 billion global conglomerate of a group of advertising, marketing and research companies. Clients have included major corporations, non-profits and government agencies. He has also used his expertise in history to write a weekly syndicated column for United Press International, give a weekly radio commentary on an NBC-affiliate in Chicago and write for USA Today as a Guest Columnist. He was sponsored for two Pulitzer prizes, and he offered his views on the relevance of history in a book published by Dow Jones-Irwin entitled “Stonehenge to Star Wars: Discovering the Present by Exploring the Past.”

“History is a guide, a teacher, a consultant and an expert on things to come,” Horowitz says. “We cannot necessarily predict the future, but history provides us with ‘options’ for what we can do and what we might expect. I hope to talk about some options based on what our leaders are doing today and what a very successful leader did long ago.”

That leader was King Henry VII of England, who founded the Tudor dynasty in 1485 and left his more well-known son, Henry VIII, with a stable country, a greater respect for the law and a surplus of money not seen since William the Conqueror was king four centuries earlier. Horowitz is the Guest Editor and a contributor to a special issue of the journal Historical Research to be published this August commemorating the 500th anniversary of the death of Henry VII.

In his presentation, he will talk about both George Bush and Barack Obama in terms of leadership and actions, and show both parallels and differences with what Henry VII did. The use of a PowerPoint presentation will complement his lively discussion, which Horowitz says is both provocative and informative.