Nov. 8, 2005 -- Sir Harold Evans will present a lecture about his critically acclaimed book, “They Made America: From Steam Engines to Search Engines: Two Centuries of Innovators,” on Wednesday, Nov. 30, at 7 p.m. in the Student Union Auditorium at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro.

The presentation, which is free and open to the public will be the fifth installment of the 2005-06 Lecture~Concert Series.

Evans’ most famous work, “The American Century,” is a provocative history of America’s realization of freedom from the American Revolution to 1889. After “The American Century,” he spent several years researching and writing an original account of the people in history who changed technology to write the follow up, “They Made America.” This book was adapted into a four-part documentary, which premiered on PBS in 2004.

Evans' career in journalism began when he was 16 working as a reporter for a British weekly newspaper. Before moving to the United States in 1984, Evans was the prize-winning editor of “The Sunday Times” and editor of “The Times.” His career awards include being voted as the all-time greatest British newspaper editor in 2002 and receiving the European Gold Medal for his work, ultimately gaining more freedoms to the British press. He was also named one of 50 world press heroes by the International Press Institute.

After arriving in the U.S., Evans held various positions, which included serving as the president and publisher of Random House trade group, and editorial director and vice chairman of “U.S. News & World Report.” He also held positions with the “New York Daily News,” “The Atlantic Monthly” and the “Fast Company.” He remains a contributing editor for “U.S. News & World Report.”

Besides being a renowned journalist, Evans is an authority on photojournalism. He was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Center of Photography in 1999.

Evans was honored with a knighthood in the Queen’s 2004 New Year’s Honors list for service to journalism.

His investigative reporting style garnered public attention for many topics. Evans wrote an impressive article that resulted in a national program for cervical cancer detection and reported another story on the lack of compensation to hundreds of British children who were born with severe birth defects from Thalidomide.

He took the Thalidomide case all the way to the European Court of Human Rights and did not stop fighting for justice until the families received due compensation. Evans also exposed Kim Philby as a Soviet spy and published the diaries of former Labour Minister Richard Crossman, risking prosecution under the British Official Secrets Act.

The Lecture~Concert Series presents diverse programs to enrich the cultural life of the campus, community, and region.

For more details, please contact Dr. Gil Fowler, associate dean of The Honors College, at 870-972-2308 or via email at gfowler@astate.edu or visit http://honors.astate.edu/.