"History with David Rubenstein" Premieres July 3 on WETA PBS

To better understand the past and how it informs the present, a probing interviewer taps the expansive knowledge of scholars and experts in the new series History with David Rubenstein. In the programs, the Washington, D.C.-based financier and philanthropist ― host of The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations ― interviews some of America’s top scholars and writers to illuminate how history is made. The new series is presented by WETA Washington, D.C. for a local broadcast premiere on Friday, July 3 at 8:30pm on WETA PBS, with additional premieres on PBS stations nationwide throughout July 2020.

“David brings fascinating ideas together in engaging, insightful conversations with some of America’s intellectual luminaries, exploring our nation’s stories and how they are remembered,” said Sharon Percy Rockefeller, President and CEO of WETA. “We are pleased to share this informative new series with the PBS system, featuring some of the most prominent thinkers of our times."

For those who love hearing the American story told by the nation’s greatest historians and biographers, History with David Rubenstein offers an insider’s perspective. Rubenstein’s interviews shine a light on why the past matters, its implications for our present times, and what it portends for the future. Conducted with warmth and with deep respect for both subject matter and guests, these dialogues also reveal the personal side of historians, including the motivations that catalyze and inform their work.

History with David Rubenstein features discussions with notable experts and biographers:

Episode 1 – Cokie Roberts, Emmy Award®-winning political commentator and author

Episode 2 – Michael Beschloss, presidential scholar and New York Times-bestselling author

Episode 3 – Doris Kearns Goodwin, presidential scholar and Pulitzer Prize-winning author

Episode 4 – Ron Chernow, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Alexander Hamilton

Episode 5 – Drew Gilpin Faust, author and former president of Harvard University

Episode 6 – Andrew Roberts, professor and international bestselling author

Episode 7 – Jill Lepore, Harvard University professor of American History

Episode 8 – Robert A. Caro, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and National Humanities Medal winner

Episode 9 – Walter Isaacson, professor and former CEO of The Aspen Institute

Episode 10 – Douglas Brinkley, presidential historian and author

David M. Rubenstein is the co-founder and co-CEO of The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest and most diverse private equity groups. A graduate of Duke University and the University of Chicago Law School, he is chairman of the board of trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, regent of the Smithsonian Institution, president of the Economic Club of Washington, and a noted philanthropist who has loaned his copies of artifacts including the Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence, and Emancipation Proclamation to national museums. Rubenstein has also helped fund repairs to, and restorations of, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, Jefferson’s home Monticello and James Madison’s home Montpelier.

WETA, the flagship broadcaster in the nation’s capital, is one of the top-producing stations of new national content for public television in the United States and the leading provider of news and public affairs content in the public television system. WETA productions and co-productions include PBS NewsHour and Washington Week; major history series and documentaries from Ken Burns, Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and a variety of other partners; and performance and art specials from the nation’s leading cultural venues.

History with David Rubenstein is produced by the New-York Historical Society and presented on PBS by WETA Washington, D.C.