The Soul of America The Soul of America

The Soul of America

The Battle for Our Better Angels

    • 4.2 • 359 Ratings
    • $9.99

Publisher Description

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jon Meacham helps us understand the present moment in American politics and life by looking back at critical times in our history when hope overcame division and fear.

“Gripping and inspiring, The Soul of America is Jon Meacham’s declaration of his faith in America.”—Newsday

ONE OF OPRAH’S “BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH” • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, The Christian Science Monitor, Southern Living


Our current climate of partisan fury is not new, and in The Soul of America Meacham shows us how what Abraham Lincoln called the “better angels of our nature” have repeatedly won the day. Painting surprising portraits of Lincoln and other presidents, including Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and Lyndon B. Johnson, and illuminating the courage of such influential citizen activists as Martin Luther King, Jr., early suffragettes Alice Paul and Carrie Chapman Catt, civil rights pioneers Rosa Parks and John Lewis, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and Army-McCarthy hearings lawyer Joseph N. Welch, Meacham brings vividly to life turning points in American history.
 
He writes about the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the birth of the Lost Cause; the backlash against immigrants in the First World War and the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s; the fight for women’s rights; the demagoguery of Huey Long and Father Coughlin and the isolationist work of America First in the years before World War II; the anti-Communist witch-hunts led by Senator Joseph McCarthy; and Lyndon Johnson’s crusade against Jim Crow. Each of these dramatic hours in our national life have been shaped by the contest to lead the country to look forward rather than back, to assert hope over fear—a struggle that continues even now.

While the American story has not always—or even often—been heroic, we have been sustained by a belief in progress even in the gloomiest of times. In this inspiring book, Meacham reassures us, “The good news is that we have come through such darkness before”—as, time and again, Lincoln’s better angels have found a way to prevail.

GENRE
History
RELEASED
2018
May 8
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
416
Pages
PUBLISHER
Random House Publishing Group
SELLER
Penguin Random House LLC
SIZE
47.4
MB

Customer Reviews

gakingmusic ,

Idealist

This is a history of the U.S. focusing on a struggle between prejudices and the ideals of democracy. However, in every chapter, the president at any given time is made out to be the hero. There are many wonderful quotations in here from Meacham and from the various historical figures he covers, and this is well worth reading for these thoughts and the many interesting stories. I just have trouble getting over the hero worship and the implied "isn't it wonderful how the government is always here to save us from ourselves?" Overall an enjoyable read.

AZWeez ,

Hope

Reading this gave me hope that my country will survive. I highly recommend reading it.

Gclapp ,

Hoep

This is a great book to read.

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