The 2010 St. Clair Lecture is scheduled for Wednesday, October 6, 2010 at 7:30 PM in Ferguson Theater in Smith Hall on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg.   Sir David Cannadine, an eminent British scholar and historian, author of the book Mellon: An American Life will present a lecture about Andrew Mellon and the Mellon family. Listed below is  information about Professor Cannadine and a review of "Mellon: An American Life."

  Professor Sir David Cannadine is Whitney J. Oates Senior Research Scholar at Princeton University and Honorary Professor in the University of London. He is the author and editor of numerous books including The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (1990); G. M. Trevelyan: A Life in History (1992); Class in Britain (1998); Ornamentalism: how the British saw their empire (2001); In Churchill’s Shadow: Confronting the Past in Modern Britain (2002), Mellon: An American Life (2006) and Making History Now and Then (2008). He is also Chairman of the Trustees of the National Portrait Gallery, a Trustee of the Kennedy Memorial Trust and the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum, a Commissioner for English Heritage and Chairman of its Blue Plaques Panel, a member of the Advisory Committee of the Royal Mint, and of the Editorial Board of the History of Parliament. 

From Booklist

This is the first comprehensive biography of Andrew Mellon, the powerful American financier, secretary of the treasury, and art collector. Like Rockefeller and Carnegie, Mellon came to symbolize the era of the U.S. rise to industrial might, with all the benefits and abuses that entailed. Professor Cannadine brings compassion and fairness to his subject. At first glance, Mellon is neither an appealing nor an especially interesting character. Mellon's father, Thomas, had already made his fortune, so Andrew's story lacks the rags-to-riches aspect that made Andrew Carnegie such a compelling figure. In personal relations, Mellon was stiff, diffident, and self-absorbed. His only marriage ended disastrously, and his relations with his children were problematic. But, as Cannadine eloquently shows, Mellon was a true genius at the art of making money. He was a brilliant practitioner of and a true believer in -laissez-faire capitalism. As secretary of the treasury under Presidents Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover, he used his financial acumen to cut both taxes and the national debt. Although he came to philanthropy late in life, the donation of his private art collection and massive subsidizing of a museum to house it have greatly enriched the nation's cultural life. Despite Mellon's personal shortcomings, Cannadine's recounting of Mellon's public career make this a worthy contribution to our understanding of the man and his era. Jay Freeman
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