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The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels

Jon Meacham

4.25 · Rating details · 9,874 ratings · 1,752 reviews

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.

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 ...more

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Kindle Edition, 372 pages

Published May 8th 2018 by Random House

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Jun 05, 2018 Bill Kerwin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history, politics

”The past is never dead; it is not even past.”—William Faulkner

In August of 2017, after the deadly alt-right march in Charlottesville, Virginia, Time’s editor Nancy Gibbs called up Jon Meacham and asked him if he had any thoughts on the subject. The Pulitzer prize-winning historian—and a son of the South who literally grew up on the Missionary Ridge battlefield—began to reflect on the words of Faulkner quoted above, and how the “American battles over power and race and history” have, “with aston
”The past is never dead; it is not even past.”—William Faulkner

In August of 2017, after the deadly alt-right march in Charlottesville, Virginia, Time’s editor Nancy Gibbs called up Jon Meacham and asked him if he had any thoughts on the subject. The Pulitzer prize-winning historian—and a son of the South who literally grew up on the Missionary Ridge battlefield—began to reflect on the words of Faulkner quoted above, and how the “American battles over power and race and history” have, “with astonishing regularity,” proven the truth of those words. The initial result of his reflection was “American Hate, a History” (Time, August 17 2017), an exploration of “several different eras” of American history “in which a politics of fear seemed to triumph, at least temporarily, over hope.” Meacham continued to reflect, and “American Hate, a History” became the seed that gave birth to his book The Soul of America.

It has also been said of the past (in a quote attributed to Twain) that history does not repeat itself but it rhymes, and I have never read a book which summons the echos of those rhymes more expertly—and more ominously—than The Soul of America. Meacham is a master of his subject, and if the ground he covers seems familiar (it is), if some chapters seem like reworked essays on individual episodes (they are), and if the extensive use of quotations at times almost overwhelms the author’s clear and elegant prose, then such factors should be seen as only minor faults—if seen as faults at all—for they too contribute to the design of the whole. For Meacham discovers the marvelous rhymes of our history in the familiar stories we (only think we) know, often in apparently unrelated episodes, their connections hidden in the testimony of the people who lived them.

Here are two examples which demonstrate how adept Meacham can be at choosing instances which reveal the rhyming of history.

Joe McCarthy and the press:

When he read coverage he disliked, McCarthy did not keep quiet—he went on the offenseive, singling out specific publications and particular journalists, sometimes at rallies. He particularly hated “The Milwaukee Journal.” . . . To a “Journal” reporter, McCarthy confided: “Off the record, I don’t know that I can cut [the “Journal”’s] profits at all . . . . But if you show a newspaper as unfriendly and having a reason for being antagonistic, you can take the sting out of what it says about you. I think I can convince a lot of people that they can’t believe what they read in the “Journal.”

George Wallace and his crowds:

Wallace brought something intriguing to the modern politics of fear in America: a visceral connection to his crowds, an appeal that confounded elites but gave him a durable base. [He] was “simply more alive than all the others,” a female journalist told the writer Marshall Frady. . . . “You saw those people in that auditorium when he was speaking—you saw their eyes. He made those people feel something real for once in their lives. . . . I couldn’t take my eyes off him, there were all those people screaming. You almost love him, though you know what a little gremlin he actually is.”

Perhaps the best thing about The Soul of America is the way it communicates the character of the person who wrote it, for Jon Meacham himself is an inspiration. Although he is a scholar and a citizen dismayed by recent events, he is also a resilient man who chooses to hope and to act. And because he is a scholar, he finds ample evidence for his hope in the deeds of brave Americans, both in its leaders—Lincoln, the two Roosevelts, FDR, Truman, LBJ—and in the gadflies and agitators who kept those leaders honest: Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Dubois, Alice Paul, Eugene Debs, Eleanor Roosevelt, Margaret Chase Smith, John Lewis, Martin Luther King. Meacham sums it up best himself:

For all of our darker impulses, for all of our shortcomings, and for all of the dreams denied and deferred, the experiment begun so long ago, carried out so imperfectly, is worth the fight. There is, in fact, no struggle more important, and none nobler, than the one we wage in the service of those better angels who, however besieged, are always ready for battle.

...more

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Jun 28, 2018 Elizabeth George rated it it was amazing

Shelves: top-faves, recomended-reads

If there were a six star category, I would give this book six stars. It's a book that should be read by every thinking American who is worried, concerned, or devastated by what is going on and has gone on in our country since Donald Trump was elected President. Yet....this is a hopeful book. Meacham posits that we have been in desperate situations before as a country, and we have survived. He covers everything from the Civil War to the establishment of the Ku Klux Klan to the McCarthy hearings t ...more

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Jun 04, 2018 Michael Ferro rated it really liked it

The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels should be required reading for every American in these divisive times. Now more than ever we need to not only recognize just how deep our societal division is, but remember that we have been in times like this before (though it's hard to remember) and come out a stronger nation... well, most of the time.

Of particular interest to me was the study of the mythical "Lost Cause" and the pathos that resulted in the resulting one hundred years of r ...more

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May 20, 2018 David Eppenstein rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, history, american-history

"I've got the the biggest brains, I'm going to be the biggest man in the United States." Sound familiar ? Think you recognize the speaker? I thought so too. I was wrong. The speaker was a man named David Stephenson who was a major leader of the Indiana Ku Klux Klan in the 1920's who was subsequently arrested for kidnapping, rape, and murder of a young woman but was convicted of second degree murder. This book is full of quotes like this from historic figures we will all recognize as well as many "I've got the the biggest brains, I'm going to be the biggest man in the United States." Sound familiar ? Think you recognize the speaker? I thought so too. I was wrong. The speaker was a man named David Stephenson who was a major leader of the Indiana Ku Klux Klan in the 1920's who was subsequently arrested for kidnapping, rape, and murder of a young woman but was convicted of second degree murder. This book is full of quotes like this from historic figures we will all recognize as well as many people whose deeds and words have been lost to history but resurrected by Mr. Meacham to serve a purpose greatly needed at present. That need is to demonstrate how knowing and understanding history helps us cope with the issues and crises of our present. No book in my memory has served a better or more needed function.

To achieve his goal Mr. Meacham has taken an assortment of divisive issues and events in our history and examined them and the people either associated with these issues or those charged with dealing and resolving these matters. He examines the history surrounding the event and what forces were exerted to make it so volatile and divisive and then how the issue was either treated or not treated and why. While reading this book I was put in mind of JFK's "Profiles in Courage" as the format is very similar but this book's treatment of its subject is far more detailed and of much greater depth. The issues covered and the personalities considered are hardly surprising but I admit I came away with different understandings of some of the historic figures I thought I knew. Meacham quotes liberally from a variety of sources to reveal much more than the public face of a given figure and the inclusion of numerous private conversations is immensely helpful in this regard. There is much to recommend this book and its need is sorely felt in our present political atmosphere. It is a relatively short book at only 272 pages of text but its message is clear and easily understood. If that wasn't sufficient, however, Mr. Meacham ends his book with a concluding chapter of what we, the voters, can do to find "Our Better Angels". The only sad conclusion one can reach after reading this book is that most, maybe all, of the issues examined still divide us. What that means is that neither the voters nor the people they vote for know enough about our history to keep us from constantly repeating our mistakes. In order to get passed our history we must first understand and deal with it and we must do that as one people. ...more

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Mar 31, 2020 J.L. Sutton rated it really liked it

Blog | Professional Public Speakers | Motivational Business ...

In The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels, Jon Meachum explores dark partisan divides in the U.S. including the Civil War/Reconstruction (and birth of the 'Lost Cause'), iterations of the Ku Klux Klan, McCarthyism as well as the forces that gathered to fight the Civil Rights movement. Meachum's thesis is that courage and decency (Abraham Lincoln's 'better angels of our nature') will win the day. With great research and a well-crafted narrative, Meachum further argues that progres ...more

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Sep 15, 2018 Faith rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audio, overdrive

This author is considerably more hopeful and inspirational about the current state of our country than many of the books I have read recently. I hope that he is correct that leaders of character will emerge to appeal to our better natures, but they certainly aren't emerging in the White House or Congress at the moment. He examines many times in which we have been tested and actually managed to survive the test and make things better for people, rather than taking giant steps backwards.

The book ...more

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Oct 29, 2018 HBalikov rated it it was amazing

It is time to put The Soul of America on the shelf for a while. I keep on coming back to sections such as his discussion of the iterations of the KKK. Meacham is a fine historian and this may be his finest ever. IT IS THE BEST BOOK THAT I READ IN 2018. He can acknowledge where we have fallen short but describes with precision and passion what brought us back from disaster as a democracy.

I have delved into Fire and Fury, Fear (by Woodward) and Comey’s book. I find no further need to plumb the dep ...more

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May 11, 2018 Stephen rated it it was ok

My only complaint about this book, and it’s not minor, is it’s reactionary tone to Donald Trump. It’s as if only the rise of Trump gave rise to this book, and that weakens the message. The Soul of America and indeed the humanity that Meachum describes, is in all of us, American or not, no matter who is president. No matter the era.

Make no mistake: The message is a good one for the national freak out currently in progress. Things have been much much worse. And good people, and even bad people wh ...more

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May 19, 2018 Michael Austin rated it it was ok

Shelves: read-in-2018

Jon Meacham's The Soul of America is this week's entry in what has become a major genre: a well-known academic or public intellectual writes a scholarly book for a popular audience that demonstrates just how much of an outlier--historically or politically--Donald Trump is. Among the books I have recently read in this genre are Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt's How Democracies Die, Robert Reich's The Common Good, Cass Sunstein's #Republic, Amy Chua's Political Tribes, Madeline Albright's Fasci Jon Meacham's The Soul of America is this week's entry in what has become a major genre: a well-known academic or public intellectual writes a scholarly book for a popular audience that demonstrates just how much of an outlier--historically or politically--Donald Trump is. Among the books I have recently read in this genre are Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt's How Democracies Die, Robert Reich's The Common Good, Cass Sunstein's #Republic, Amy Chua's Political Tribes, Madeline Albright's Fascism, and Timothy Snyder's The Road to Unfreedom.

All in all, it's not a bad genre. Trump is a political and historical outlier, and it is good to understand exactly how. But these books are not uniformly good. One of the most infallible rules of the publishing industry is that, when a certain kind of book starts to sell well, everybody will publish one, and some of them will suck.

The Soul of America doesn't exactly suck. But neither does it exactly not suck. It's author, Jon Meacham, is certainly a very good historian who has written a lot of very good books. This one, though, feels more like assorted notes for a book rather than an actual book. It doesn't ever really come together as a thing. It contains some good insights and a few interesting bits of history, but it doesn't contain, well, a book.

Meacham's thesis, from what I can tell, is that there have been a lot of times in American history when people have been divided. But we have been able to do good things anyway because of some intangible quality in American presidents by which they take their offices seriously, rise to the occasion, and do important things, even though they are deeply flawed human beings whom one would never have expected capable of doing important things.

The events are all at least vaguely related to various Civil Rights issues: Lincoln and emancipation, Grant and the KKK, TR and Women's Suffrage, Wilson and the KKK 2.0, FDR and the Nazis, Eisenhower and McCarthy, an LBJ and the 1964 Civil Rights Act. But even these chapters don't really stick to their main point. They bounce all over the place and bring in side issues and tangents that detract from anything that could reasonably be considered a main point. While reading The Spirit of America, my main thought was, "this would be pretty good if somebody turned it into a book."

I have no idea how this book came to be, but I like to imagine that it went something like this: the editors at Random House look around and see that anti-Trump books by academics are flying off the shelves. They call up Jon Meacham, who has won two Pulitzer Prizes for biographies of Jackson and Jefferson and say, "Hey, Jon Baby, can you write us a "Dump Trump" book. Meacham clears off a bunch of stuff from his hard drive that didn't make it into any of his other books, writes a preface that talks about how divided the nation is these days because Donald Trump, and then groups the material into chapters that vaguely suggest that Americans can do hard things when they have a minimally decent president.

With a little more effort, a good editor, and another 9-12 months, it could have been a good book too. ...more

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Jun 06, 2018 Lorna rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, political-history, favorite-book-covers

The Soul of America: The Battle For Our Better Angels is a beautiful book written to give one hope in these troubled times by veteran historian Jon Meacham. Basically, it recounts the struggles that this country has had from its beginnings and how many American presidents have risen to the occasion, as well as this country's influential activists, striving to keep this democracy alive and in the "search for the better angels of our nature."

"We are not enemies but friends. We must not be enemies ...more

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Jul 04, 2018 Aura rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, history, best-of-2018

I watched Jon Meacham on the Real Time by Bill Maher. He talked about how he is hopeful for the future and trump is nothing new in American history. I decided that I needed to read this book because I needed something uplifting to read. As I listened to this audiobook, I did not feel reassured nor hopeful. I still feel fearful of the future of America. Most of this book is a recounting of history from the civil war, reconstruction, the rise of the Klan, Jim Crow laws, McCarthism, the internment ...more

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May 06, 2018 Casey Wheeler rated it it was amazing

Shelves: native-americans, the-west, history, net-galley, nonfiction, us-history, goodreads, revolutionary-war, civil-war, presidents

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 ...more

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Aug 19, 2019 Monica rated it really liked it

Shelves: history, soc-sci-politics, audio, nonfic_challenge-2019, pub_2010s, kindle_nonfiction, pub-2018

Marinating.

3.5 Stars

Listened to the audiobook. Narration was good, not great.

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Jun 04, 2019 Raymond rated it liked it · review of another edition

"The message of Martin Luther King Jr.... dwells in the American soul, so does the menace of the Ku Klux Klan."

This book is a direct response to the Trump era and it was written in light of the events of Charlottesville, VA in 2017. Meacham makes the argument that our current moment may be dark but history shows we can rise above it.

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Dec 26, 2019 Lisa rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 5-star-reviews, audible, 2019

A gripping and informative analysis of the pivotal moments in American history and the courageous individuals who made a difference.

SUMMARY
Author Jon Meacham helps us understand the present moment in American politics by looking back at critical times in our past when hope overcame division and fear. Meacham proclaims that our current climate of partisan fury is not new, and he shows us how what Abraham Lincoln called the “better angels of our nature” have repeatedly won the day.

America has ge ...more

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Oct 25, 2019 Melodie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, 5000-books-2019, history

There is nothing new under the sun. I believed this for years, until the 2016 election. I have watched with shock and despair the path our country has taken under the current leadership. Surely, nothing like this has happened in this country . And if it has, not to the precipice that we find ourselves teetering on.
Enter Jon Meacham, veteran historian. Page by page I was taken on a journey through our political/social past. Through the eyes and words of presidents from our distant and recent pa ...more

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May 23, 2018 Mehrsa rated it really liked it

This is a really hopeful book, but also a little boring. The end passage is the most vital. Things are not worse than they have been and we can get over it. The message may be more optimistic than is my usual leaning, but he does show how racism, xenophobia, corruption, etc have always been with us and so have the drives toward equality, acceptance, and reform.

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Jul 14, 2018 George rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2018

A timely book by a man who speaks as eloquently as he writes. The book is inspired by events in Charlottesville, where I was fortunate enough to hear him speak in mid-June, 2018, shortly after I finished the book. Mr. Meacham revisits U.S. history reminding us that though the American soul has both bright/good parts and dark/bad parts, its "moral arc" bends, as MLK said, towards justice.

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Jul 12, 2019 Ed rated it it was amazing

I've watched Jon Meacham on cable TV and liked his lectures, so I gave his history book a read and found it interesting and enlightening. He discusses U.S. presidents and their handling of major problems. He includes lots of quotes and footnotes. It made for a nice change of pace for my reading list.

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Jul 06, 2018 Scott rated it really liked it · review of another edition

"He . . . understood people, and when it came time to make decisions, he was willing to take the responsibility . . . He had a good head and a great brain and a kind heart . . . He was the best kind of ordinary man. I mean that as high praise, not deprecation . . . He's one of the people and becomes distinguished in the service that he gives other people." -- Harry S. Truman on Abraham Lincoln

Author Meacham details various moments in U.S. history when certain presidents (Lincoln, both of the Ro ...more

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Dec 10, 2018 Hayley rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I wish Jon Meachum would narrate all his audiobooks; his voice is wonderful to listen to. Excellent books, perfect for anyone who wants to learn more about history and our politicians foibles.

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Jul 28, 2018 LemonLinda rated it it was amazing

This is such an important book to read if you have concerns regarding what the implications may be resulting from positions taken and rhetoric spoken by our current administration. Meacham speaks to times such as this throughout American history when we have faced dark days, but we have triumphed and those darker impulses have been rebuked. He speaks to numerous divisions at various times in our history and how we have healed afterwards. This book helps me to continue my vigil as "dissent does n ...more

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May 18, 2018 Kusaimamekirai rated it it was amazing

It is easy perhaps in 2018 with the frequent vulgar twitter outbursts, invectives against enemies real and otherwise, and attempts to delegitimize the basic fabric of government coming from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (or Florida I suppose), that the American project is facing the greatest crisis it has ever faced.
The author acknowledges that things are bad but he sees in America’s history that this moment is far from unique. From wars, to crippling depressions, to internal strife, America is no It is easy perhaps in 2018 with the frequent vulgar twitter outbursts, invectives against enemies real and otherwise, and attempts to delegitimize the basic fabric of government coming from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (or Florida I suppose), that the American project is facing the greatest crisis it has ever faced.
The author acknowledges that things are bad but he sees in America’s history that this moment is far from unique. From wars, to crippling depressions, to internal strife, America is no stranger to dark days. It has had Presidents who have tried to build physical as well as metaphorical walls and have at times not always put our best foot forward (Woodrow Wilson segregating the federal government, Andrew Johnson trying to strangle reconstruction, Andrew Jackson…too many things for the scope of this short review). It has also however had Lincoln, FDR, and others who despite fierce partisanship, preached tolerance and reconciliation under the banner of us all being Americans. Even a polarizing figure like George W. Bush spoke eloquently about how Islamic extremism was just that, extremism and that Muslim-Americans are first and foremost Americans.
America’s history is one of drifting toward the darkness of fascism or communism but always in end finding a way to right itself. While the President is never the sole reason for these corrections, he has always been the figurehead of the nation and the man who sets its moral course. Reading Meacham’s outstanding and compulsively readable history of how we have survived as a nation makes for extremely inspirational reading for those who hope America can find that course again. I’ll stop my review here and instead I’d like to close with a few quotes from great Americans during times of crisis. They can say more and say it more articulately than I ever hope to.

“Now, the greater any of these apprehensions, the greater is the need that we look at them clearly, face to face, without fear, like honest, straightforward Americans, so we do not develop the jitters or any other kind of panic, that we do not fall prey to hysterical thinking. Sometimes you feel, almost, that we can be excused for getting a little bit hysterical, because these dangers come from so many angles, and they are of such different kinds, and no matter what we do they still seem to exist. It is the American belief in decency and justice and progress, and the value of individual liberty, because of the rights conferred upon each of us by our Creator, that will carry us through. There must be something in the heart as well as in the head. -Dwight Eisenhower”

“We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, and whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured.”-Martin Luther King.

“We have our factions which seek to promote this or that interest, without regard to the relationship to others, and without regard for the common we. We have the factions of hatred and prejudice and violence. Hamilton warned us that however such combinations or associations may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely themselves to usurp the reins of government, destroying afterward the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion”

As an LBJ fan, I have to include this conversation he had with Alabama governor George Wallace at the White House when he hoped to convince him to not resist desegregation, simply because it is so quintessentially LBJ and it made me smile:

LBJ: “Why don’t you just desegregate all your schools? You and I go out there in front of those television cameras right now, and you announce you’ve decided to desegregate every school in Alabama.”

Wallace: “Oh, Mr. President, I can’t do that. You know, the schools have got school boards. They’re locally run. I haven’t got the political power to do that”

LBJ: “Don’t you shit me, George Wallace. Now, listen, George, don’t think about 1968, Think about 1988. You and me, we’ll be dead and gone then, George. What do you want left after you, when you die? Do you want a great big marble monument that reads, George Wallace-He Built. Or do you want a little piece of scrawny pine board lying across that harsh caliche soil that reads, George Wallace-He Hated.”

...more

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Sep 14, 2018 David Huff rated it it was amazing

“Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible,” the theologian and thinker Reinhold Niebuhr wrote in 1944, “but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.” We try; we fail; but we must try again, and again, and again, for only in trial is progress possible. -- Jon Meacham

This was a fascinating and a timely read, filled with both historical insight and hope. There are in our current times any number of reasons for Americans to react when they read the news, and to feel not j ...more

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Jun 01, 2018 Peter (Pete) Mcloughlin rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 1990-to-2019, owned-books, american-founding, media, 1890-1959, law, politics, 1701-to-1800, africana, civil-war

Racial demagogues and people fighting for justice are part of the American story. Trump is playing notes that have been playing since colonial days. It is maddening that we are still playing this game and that we can't seem to move forward on this issue in this country. The same bigots seem to come at us with the same stupidity over and over again as if the worst of American history is recycled in slightly different (sometimes more menacing) packaging every generation. When are we supposed to ov ...more

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May 21, 2018 Joseph Sciuto rated it it was amazing

Jon Meacham's "The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels" is a must read, especially for those among us who are not familiar with the racism that has infested our great nation since the time of the American Revolution. Thankfully, as Mr. Meacham has so poignantly pointed out, with each infestation there have been men and women who have stood up to such evil and kept our nation on a path toward righteousness from Presidents Lincoln, Grant, TR, Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, John ...more

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May 13, 2018 Chris Carson rated it it was amazing

Meacham is a superb storyteller, historian and Presidential scholar. His book is timely as our country faces the most (disgusting) unusual ascendency of a candidate to the office of President since Andy Jackson.

The United States has survived and thrived because the majority of its citizens have followed the course of its “better angels.” Hopefully this abnormal interlude will end soon and the values that truly make our country great throughout the world will once again be the standard.

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Sep 04, 2020 Kym Moore rated it it was amazing

***RECOMMENDED READ***

I have been reading a variety of history books throughout the years and the historical accounts in this book by Jon Meacham are like we are currently reliving the past wearing new clothes with the same attitude. While this book contained a plethora of information to digest, here are a few revelatory takeaways that are critical alarms and reminders of the past that we see surging in our present. History truly does repeat itself and in so many cases, as listed in this book, t ...more

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Jul 18, 2018 Jon rated it it was amazing

I am no great student of American history, so there is much in this book that I didn't know. I found out--with a chill--that Lee surrendered to Grant on Palm Sunday of 1865, and Lincoln was shot five days later on Good Friday. I have never read such a thorough description of the way racism, fear, and hatred have warped our history--how the south may have lost slavery in 1865, but it was determined (and still is) not to lose white supremacy or state's rights. As Robert Penn Warren said, the Confe ...more

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Jun 27, 2018 Steven Z. rated it liked it

Reading Jon Meacham’s latest historical work, THE SOUL OF AMERICA: THE BATTLE FOR OUR BETTER ANGELS at the same time as the federal government is separating immigrant families into “relocation centers” reminiscent of Japanese internment camps during World War II is extremely disturbing. It is not a stretch to label the Trump administration’s immigration policies as racist when one considers the language and comments of those like Steven Miller and company, especially the president. However you d Reading Jon Meacham’s latest historical work, THE SOUL OF AMERICA: THE BATTLE FOR OUR BETTER ANGELS at the same time as the federal government is separating immigrant families into “relocation centers” reminiscent of Japanese internment camps during World War II is extremely disturbing. It is not a stretch to label the Trump administration’s immigration policies as racist when one considers the language and comments of those like Steven Miller and company, especially the president. However you describe the facilities that parents and children are separated and housed in together, it is un-American for the media and members of Congress to be barred from investigating what is going on behind those chain linked fences. President Trump may tweet his racist rationalizations and comments that have little or no basis in fact all he wants, but what is clear is that he has a different agenda than the majority of the American people.

Meacham’s overall thesis is that the current political turmoil we find ourselves in is not unprecedented and as a nation we have survived worse. Let us hope that he is correct but after events like Charlottesville, talk of Mexican rapists, vicious attacks on anyone who disagrees with the administration, the Mueller investigation, the fecklessness of Congressional Republicans, and President Trump’s admiration for dictatorships around the world, at the same time as he is exhibiting disdain for America’s democratic allies, I fear that Mr. Meacham may be overly optimistic.

For those who have read Meacham’s works on Roosevelt and Churchill, Andrew Jackson, George H.W. Bush, and Thomas Jefferson his current effort should not disappoint. Meacham’s monograph is well written and researched as are all his previous books. He has the ability to expose the reader to a useful overview of American history that assists in our understanding of events. The author points out that he has not written his work because past presidents have always risen to the occasion, but because President Trump rarely, if ever does. A major theme of the book is that America will usually choose the right path when encouraged from the top.

Meacham’s discussion of the historical roots of fear in our history are apropos as in today’s politics as President Trump seems to rest each statement and policy on ginning up his base through the application of fear. We must remember that “fear divides, hope unifies.” Meacham concentrates on the twin tragedies in our nation’s history, the subjugation of people of color, and the justification of policies that infringe upon the rights of citizens justified through the concept of the “expansion of liberty.” The creation of the presidency by the Founding Fathers was “an act of faith in the future and an educated wager on human character.” The problem is that throughout our history such hopes have not always been realized.

After reviewing a number viewpoints dealing with the presidency, the ideas of Thomas Jefferson sum it up best; “in a government like ours it is the duty of the Chief-magistrate, in order to enable himself to do all the good which his station requires to endeavor, by all honorable means, to unite in himself the confidence of the whole people,” not just those who voted for him.

Meacham delves into the philosophical foundations of America’s creation in detail. He explores the likes of John Locke, Adam Smith, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams concluding that the president is a reflection of the needs and wants of the American people. The character and temperament of the Chief Executive are of paramount importance when trying to unite the general population behind a program that is supposed to meet the needs of all. By discussing the approaches taken by men such as Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson it makes it difficult to accept the demeanor and character of the current occupant of the White House.

The author does an excellent job introducing each case study at the outset of each chapter. He places events and characters in their proper historical context and allows the reader insights into the issue at hand, and creates continuity for the examples he puts forth. This is evident in perhaps Meacham’s best chapters dealing with immigration and white nationalism. He makes the important point that to understand the resurgence of white nationalism today, furthered by Trump’s “dog whistle” approach to race one must return to the immediate post-Civil War period and the failure of Reconstruction. The parallels with the latter part of the 19th century, the 1920s, and today in terms of racial issues and hatred, are very discomforting.

Many white American feared a post slavery society in which emancipation led to equality, and they successfully ensured through lynching’s, denial of equal education and voting rights, that no such equality would come to pass. Immigration has also been seen as a threat to white Americans as millions arrived between 1890 and 1910. The reaction that produced the Ku Klux Klan is important to contemplate because some of the issues that prevailed in America are similar to today. For the post-Civil War period that produced the first Klan, and the 1920s that produced the second Klan we witness massive industrialization and urbanization which transformed the old agrarian world. The Klan promised racial solidarity and cultural certitude. The issue of jobs, neighborhoods, religious rights, immigration all affected how Americans felt about the future, a future where whites believed that they were losing their country to non-whites. The Klan and men like Huey Long and Father Coughlin in the 1930s gave their adherents a social and political program that spoke to their fears at the moment and to the “mythology of identity.” The 1920s sought a wall against southern Europeans, today Trump wants a wall against Mexicans and Central America.

Perhaps the man who most epitomizes the tactics, character, and temperament of President Trump is Senator Joseph McCarthy. While Trump wishes he had his own Roy Cohn, McCarthy actually had him. Cohn, a New York lawyer who advised McCarthy and later worked with Trump describes McCarthy; “he was impatient, overly aggressive, and overly dramatic. He acted on impulse. He tended to sensationalize the evidence he had….He would neglect to do important homework and consequently, would on occasion, make challengeable statements.” McCarthy was a master of the news cycle and probably the author of “fake news “as he dominated politics between 1950 and 1954, and caused so many who were accused as being soft on communists or communists themselves to lose their jobs and place in society, but as Meacham might argue we as a nation overcame his negative impact and moved on. Since Cohn’s description fits Trump to a tee, hopefully once he is out of office the same thing will occur.

The most important chapter in the book deals with Lyndon Johnson. After not heeding the warning that he could lose the south for the Democratic Party for a generation he pushed through the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Further, Johnson, a white southerner led the fight that resulted in the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Johnson’s work reflected an unusual character and temperament that allowed him to beat back the George Wallace’s of the age and show what the true “soul of America” could be. As he stated in his address to Congress on March 15, 1965, “For with a country as with a person, what is men profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Today, I wonder what the evangelical leadership thinks when they support Trump’s tweet and actions when they consult Jesus from the Gospel of St. Mark?

For Meacham, his book is one of optimism and hope arguing that after each period of reaction and racism it has been followed by elements of the good in our society. He makes it sound like the business cycle and that it is inevitable that the evil purported by the Trump administration will eventually be replaced by what really made America great once he is out of office. Meacham‘s work is an easy read, but do not mistake the substance that lies behind it.

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About Jon Meacham

Jon Meacham

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Jon Meacham is the editor of Newsweek, a Pulitzer Prize winning bestselling author and a commentator on politics, history, and religious faith in America.

Books by Jon Meacham

American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House

Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship

Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush

American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation

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Good Minds Suggest—Jon Meacham's Favorite History Books

His Favorite History Books: The Pulitzer-winning author of the new biography Thomas Jefferson picks his favorite works of historical scholarship.

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“In our finest hours, though, the soul of the country manifests itself in an inclination to open our arms rather than to clench our fists;” — 13 likes

“The coward, then, is a despairing sort of person; for he fears everything,” Aristotle wrote. “The brave man, on the other hand, has the opposite disposition; for confidence is the mark of a hopeful disposition.” — 12 likes

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