The Soul of America

The Battle for Our Better Angels

De: Jon Meacham

Narrado por: Fred Sanders, Jon Meacham

#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.

A Hopeful Reminder Of Better Angels

"One of the points for reflecting on the past, is to prepare us for action in the present." ~Jon Meacham

Gratitude: Jon Meacham's book "The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels" is a reasoned, heartfelt history lesson. A fireside chat. It gives me hope and comfort that better angels are always waiting in the wings.

Know your history.

Great book that demonstrate the responsible way to be a great citizen. This book demonstrates how Trump was elected. Now we must standup and prevent him from destroying our freedoms.

A Ray of Hope

Jon Meacham has a way of taking us on a guided tour of our present through a visit to our country's history. Although we may find a sense of fear for the continuation of our democracy in our present, Meacham shows us that the very concern for the continuation of that democracy has been ingrained in this experiment we call the United States. This concern is always a call to right the ship of state, not abandon it to rocks and reefs of a turbulent political sea. Tribalism and the isolation of political views do not advance our narrative. There is hope and that hope still burns brightly within the soul of America.

Very Well done

Meacham's book came at the right time for me. With the present disaster in the White House and the pathetic Congress it gave hope that we has weathered dark times in our past. We have to stop taking democracy for granted and fight like demons to preserve it. Lets hope we don't end up like Hungry, Poland or Turkey.

Outstanding history book about civil rights and the struggles

This should be required reading of all high school students. This was great to get so many insights from so many different books presented in a wonderful way.