In this divisive times when it feels like the decisions being made by the executive and legislative branches of the government are making decisions that will irrevocably alter the values the United States represents, Meacham reminds us that the United States has gone through such crises again and again and has always stayed its course.

I actually had the privilege of interviewing Jon Meacham when this title came out. He's a wonderful writer and incredible speaker. I highly recommend any of his works.

Jon Meacham is an author, historian, professor, and commentator. He has the long view on the politics of today’s world. And he explains what that means in his latest book, The Soul of America.

His premise is that our country has had many previous bouts of unrest, with politicians making unpopular decisions. There’ve been many previous movements to topple legislators and other leaders with discriminatory policies. And, quoting Abraham Lincoln, “the better angels of our nature” win out.

So, fundamentally, The Soul of America is meant to be optimistic rather than depressing. But let’s be honest, Meacham moves through some of the most conflict-ridden parts of United States history. Even though good wins out in those eras, and the country remains a democracy, he reminds us of how many times we the people have had to fight for it. Obviously, the fight continues today.

For example, he tells the story of the Klu Klux Klan just following the Civil War. He reminds us of the disenfranchisement of women, and their long fight for voting rights. And the Red Scare of Senator Joe McCarthy’s time. Then he moves on to the Jim Crow laws and the fight for civil rights during the 1960s. Also the internment of Japanese Americans in 1941, for which reparations were offered in the 1980s. That’s not even a complete list.

Ultimately, I think Meacham wants his readers to know that what brings our country back from the brink is always (always, always) the actions of its citizens. That this is a time for action, not unlike so many others. And that’s advice I can accept and put into action. Perhaps you can also!

My conclusions
Meacham is first and foremost an historian. This is a scholarly work—you’ll find nearly as many pages of notes as of text. And he loads it up with direct quotes from historical figures. So, if that’s what you love, you’ll be in heaven.

If you’re more of a casual political and current events observer, this may feel exceedingly heavy to you. It did to me. That’s not a criticism, because I still found the book fascinating. And I was glad to have some lighter reads going at the same time. I just wonder if I absorbed everything when listening by audio. Thankfully, I have a digital version to revisit in the future as well.

For me, Meacham’s writing style isn’t overly dry given the topic. He keeps the pace moving from event to event. His sentences are shorter and less convoluted than some historians. The book feels more like a talk or a TV show than a dissertation.

This is a perspective worth investigating. I hope you’ll give it a go!

Acknowledgements
Thanks to NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group – Random House, and the author for the digital ARC in exchange for this honest review.

It is simultaneously terrifying and comforting to read about the history of America has changed so much while remaining the same. I took solace in Meacham's work and hope other citizens of the United States will do likewise.

4.5. An absolutely incredible read! What a well documented, researched and excellently written history. Jon Meacham’s book so aptly chronicles that the turbulent times of today are not unique in our nation’s history, but that our democracy and strength as a country has gotten us through. It gives me hope in some very uncertain and troubling times! I just hope those “better angels” come soon. I highly recommend this book.

I enjoy Jon Meacham’s wit and historical perspective when I see him on cable shows, so I was delighted to be sent an advanced reader’s copy of The Soul of America from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I confess that I almost did not get past the first chapter because I felt it was written by Jon Meacham the political commentator rather than Jon Meacham the historian. But I felt an obligation to NetGalley and Random House to read the book, so read it I did.
Meacham has taken articles that he had written in the past and brought them together in a montage detailing critical eras in American politics, from Lincoln and reconstruction to Jim Crow, Vietnam, World War II. His message is that there are better angels among us and even in the direst of times, good will prevail. I personally found the LBJ section to be the most interesting because I felt that Meacham portrayed him as a soul who really cared about the racial division in this country, not just a politician scoring points.
One of my major problems with this book is a recurring one with Meacham—His use of quotations makes the writing difficult to follow at times. I lose the flow of the dialogue and find myself having to reread to the point that it becomes distracting. My book club read America Lion, and we all found his use of quotes off-putting for the casual reader. I never finished Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power for the same reason. I keep meaning to go back to it because I find Jefferson fascinating, but have not to date (so many books, so little time).
As for this book, one’s political view will skew one’s opinion of it. The important thing to remember is that there have always been trying times that humankind has endured, and there will be others in the future. It’s important to keep a historical perspective, and not lose your head over day-to-day drama.

This book should be required reading for everyone. Today we think that America is a horrible mess, and cannot possibly find a way forward. And that the divisions among us are insurmountable. Meacham reveals that this is not the end, that we have found ourselves in similar predicaments many times in the past. And we persevered and came out the other side stronger. Today's problems are just a bump in the road, and we will survive. Many thanks to the author for making me feel better and confident than I did before reading the book!

Jon Meacham thinks that even more crucial than an affirmation of the American creed is the fight for the American soul. Meacham characterizes this fight as a struggle between fear and hope, and surveys the forces in American history that appeal to each and the crucial role of presidential leadership. He summarizes his thesis as follows: “Our greatest leaders have pointed toward the future–not at this group or that sect.” Among others, he quotes Harry S. Truman as one who upheld this ideal:

“You can’t divide the country up into sections and have one rule for one section and one rule for another, and you can’t encourage people’s prejudices. You have to appeal to people’s best instincts, not their worst ones. You may win an election or so by doing the other, but it does a lot of harm to the country.”

Meacham’s book is a survey of this struggle throughout our history. We begin with George Washington’s expansive vision: “The bosom of America is open to receive not only the opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions.” He was followed by John Adams who passed the unpopular Alien and Sedition Act, leading in turn to Jefferson’s presidency. He explores our “peculiar institution” of slavery that eventuated in the Civil War, Lincoln’s movement to an emancipation vision and a generous peace, and the cruel reaction of the rise of Jim Crow, the Klan, and lynchings during the failed Reconstruction.

His chapter on Teddy Roosevelt focuses on the mixed record of this president whose progressive agenda fought for the poor and who was the first to welcome a black, Booker Washington, to the White House and invoked high ideals, yet also made racist remarks and yield to the forces of the Lost Cause. Nevertheless, he worked with Jane Addams on poor relief and the rights of women. He epitomizes the struggle between fear and hope in his person and yet articulated a vision of one America:

“There can be no divided allegiance….We have room for but one flag, the American flag; for one language, the English language [an idea some would contest today]; for but one soul loyalty and that is loyalty to the American people.”

The post World War I era brought new struggles even as America prospered. Women’s suffrage finally became the law of the land, yet fear over the rise of communism and a resurgent Klan aroused the fears of Americans against enemies without and within. Prosperity gave way to Depression. Politics contrasted between the demagoguery of Huey Long, and the expansive vision of Franklin Roosevelt who declared that we had nothing “to fear but fear itself.”

Post World War II found America with an expanding middle class thanks to the GI Bill, and a renewed paranoia about communism, incarnated in McCarthyism. Later when Lyndon B. Johnson succeeds assassinated President Kennedy, he uses all his political skill to pass Kennedy’s civil rights agenda, losing the South to the Democrats, but ending desegregation, establishing many civil rights protections, and giving blacks the vote.

He concludes this work with a ringing plea for Americans to enter the arena, to resist tribalism, to respect facts and use reason, to find a critical balance between the extremes of our politics, and to keep our history in mind. It is clear that he has our current political administration in his sights in tracing this struggle between the rival visions of hope and fear that many have used to try to capture the American soul. His argument falls on the side of hope, as he cites examples over and over of how leaders have appealed to our “better angels” to overcome hate, and that this hope should animate us even in a time of fear.

What is somewhat troubling to me in this book is that the book uses, even quotes rhetoric I’ve heard since my childhood–in fact the quotes are one of the highlights of this book–they are so good. And yet, there is a humanistic optimism here that I think does not adequately reckon with the darker angels of our nature as a country. It is evident in the underlying struggle with racism and white supremacy that runs through the book. I don’t think Meacham reckons with how strongly and unrepentantly embraced this is in many sectors of white society, even the parts that try to deny we are racist; that try to pretend we are colorblind. I think Meacham is right to contrast fear and hope, but I would suggest he neither adequately assesses the roots of fear, nor explores the faith and convictions that animate hope amid desperate circumstances. The closest he gets is Martin Luther King, Jr.’s encounter with an inner voice when his home was bombed and his family threatened. The voice said,

” ‘Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth. And, lo, I will be with you even until the end of the world.’ I heard Jesus saying still to fight on. He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone.”

We live in an age of sentiments rather than convictions. Meacham reminds us of people motivated by compelling ideas and moral principles. If hope is nothing more than a preferable feeling to fear, it won’t take us very far. But if a hope grounded in deep conviction takes the measure of the deep roots of fear and hate, and “stands up,” there is yet a chance that the soul of America might be turned. I hope.

____________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

“To know what has come before is to be armed against despair,” argues Jon Meacham in the introduction to his newest book The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels. This book, his eighth, is an insightful survey of modern American political conflict through the lens of the presidency.

It is a study of extremes: Union against Confederate, Klansmen against Civil Rights activists, Urban against Rural, and Isolationists against Internationalists to name a few. Each of these conflicts, seemingly repeated again and again throughout American history, wrapped up the populace and with it the president. What makes this book memorable is how each chief executive reacted, both in words and actions, to their iteration of these repeating conflicts.

Many times, but not always, the steady hand of the president seemed to guide this nation in the right direction. In its uplifting moments, the book showcases the thoughtful courage of Lincoln, the deeply held convictions of Teddy Roosevelt, and the meaningful legislative accomplishments of Lyndon Johnson as each boldly faced their generation's crises.

If there is a criticism to be leveled against this point of view, it is that the character of presidents is sometimes conflated with their mark on history while the middle majority of Americans in between the extremes is largely ignored. Good men have held the presidency with disastrous results while deeply flawed presidents have accomplished great things. We may focus on the splashes, but the steadily rising tide is the real story of America.

Perhaps that "national fever" of extremism in the face of uncertainty, once in remission and now on the rise once more, is on the verge of breaking. The American experience is that good has repeatedly triumphed, though never completely, over evil. Meacham, echoing Churchill, said it best: “The story of America is thus one of slow, often unsteady steps forward.” Those steps can be guided by the president, but they are America’s to take.

Jon Meacham is one of my favorite nonfiction authors because he truly captures his subjects and makes them accessible to all readers. This book gave me hope for the future of the country in these tumultuous times. I highly recommend it to readers of narrative nonfiction, history, and pop culture.

The soul of America: The battle for our better angels
by John Meacham
Understanding America of today Meacham states you must understand the America of the past.

Quoting from Abraham Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln called the "better angels of our nature" have repeatedly “won the day”

The current political turmoil is not unprecedented, that as a nation we have survived times worse than this and Meacham by chronicling the nation’s struggles from revolutionary times to current day, and citing presidents Lincoln , Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and Lyndon B. Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr and Alice Paul and Carrie Chapman Catt early suffragettes Meacham writes about the civil war , the backlash of immigrants and the Klu Klux Klan and many other examples, Meacham reassures us, "The good news is that we have come through such darkness before" and the better angels have prevailed.

I got a free copy from Netgalley so God bless them for that. I had heard a lot about this book so I was looking forward to it and there are many examples of pivotal; historic moments but sadly it fails. 5 stars due to efforts but it fails because you would think that all this happened because of the twitter POTUS. The brilliant author leaves all or the majority of God's hand in America, as if man can fix man. We all were filled with that dream when the big "O" won the first time and loo how that turned out. The book is worth your read but I would read some other accounts to even the scale. If you will you may find that one of the saddest thing about heroes is that they don't grow old very well.

This book is at once encouraging and cautionary. Jon Meacham takes us through some very trying periods in American history, including Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the naissance and renaissance of the Ku Klux Klan, and the McCarthy era. In doing so, he describes the actions of the then sitting President in counterpoint to the popular nativist sentiments. Not addressed, but writ large between the lines, is the contrast between, on the one hand, how Lincoln, Grant, both Roosevelts, Eisenhower, and Johnson dealt with these populists, and, on the other, how our current President encourages them.

THE SOUL OF AMERICA by Pulitzer-prize winner Jon Meacham is subtitled "The Battle for Our Better Angels" and was published by Random House earlier this month. Here, Meacham reflects on what Americans have loved in common down the centuries: "a love of fair play, of generosity of spirit, of reaping the rewards of hard work, and of faith in the future." Even though he says, "too often, people see their own opportunity as dependent on domination over others," he is optimistic enough to describe many instances of leadership and citizen activism such that "the soul of the country manifests itself in an inclination to open our arms rather than to clench our fists; to look out rather than to turn inward; to accept rather than to reject; to hope rather than to fear."

Meacham also provides extensive notes and a lengthy bibliography and employs a historical lens to illustrate that "history's stories of presidential leadership in hours of fear are as often disappointing as they are heroic." While his work may be a bit verbose for our high school students, THE SOUL OF AMERICA did receive a starred review from Booklist.

This was a well-written and interesting book that is an excellent guide through the history of the United States, divided up by different Presidential eras. Lots of facts that I was not aware of. Highly recommended!!

I received a free Kindle copy of The Soul of America by Jon Meacham courtesy of Net Galley  and Random House, the publisher. It was with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and my fiction book review blog. I also posted it to my Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus pages.

I requested this book as I have read a number of books (all biographies) by the author and the description made it very interesting. 

Meacham describes accurately this book with the subtitle "The Battle for our Better Angels." The books is about how we as a country have endured and overcome extremeism and racism in the past. Whenever past political leaders have tried to gain ground through fear and blaming other groups (primarily ethic and immigrants) we as a nation have overcome these shortsighted grabs for power. 

He uses numerous examples and rather than trying to recreate what was said, uses many direct qoutes from speeches of those involved in providing leadership to overcome the attempts at spreading and feeding fear in the people (in particular specific groups).

I strongly recommend this book for anyone who thinks that we are doomed due the current political atmosphere in our country. We are not and we will surivive and rise above the political spin, social media garbage, sound bite news and real fake news.

A quotation treasure chest for dedicated history buffs
Inspired by the tumultuous climate of current-day politics and government the new book The Soul of America by Pulitzer-winner Jon Meacham explores periods in America’s history that tested our nation’s soul and our ability to face fear and extreme controversy. His upbeat conclusion is that we as a nation have, indeed, called upon “the better angels of our nature” and weathered our toughest challenges, including Reconstruction, women’s suffrage, Ku Klux Klan (a recurring threat),the Great Depression, McCarthyism, and the 60s civil rights movement. To sum up the book, in the words of Harry Truman, “The people have often made mistakes, but given time and the facts, they will make the correction.”
The depth and breadth of Meacham’s scholarship is truly impressive, and he draws on his sources liberally, at times seeming almost like a volume of Bartlett’s Quotations. For example, on one page picked at random, he quotes Thomas Jefferson, Aristotle, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and Thomas Paine. The heavy use of the quotes from his sources was admirable on one level but to this reader broke up the smooth flow of the writing and made it a less enjoyable read. As a result, I suggest that this book is most likely to be appreciated by true history mavens.
Indeed, Meacham is certainly not the only fine writer inspired by present-day events. For a different take on challenges to political systems a general audience might enjoy How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt , which discusses failures but also the elements that enable a democracy to thrive, with interesting examples from America as well as foreign governments.
NOTE: My thanks to NetGalley for an advance reader copy of this book.

I believe Jon Meacham is my favorite author. Five stars. Will be recommending to my non-fiction reading friends. I had been very interested in what Jon M was working on. Was so glad to see this and have a chance to read it early.

You cannot go wrong with ANY of his books.

Meacham's gift with the English language shows here. His walk through our challenging periods of history gives me hope there we can survive the current political maelstrom that we are going through.