The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels
"Our current climate of partisan fury is not new, and in The Soul of America, Meacham shows us how what Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature" have repeatedly won the day. Painting surprising portraits of Lincoln, and other presidents, including Theodore Roosevelt, Ulysses S. Grant, 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 Klu 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, crucial turning points, the battle to lead the country to look forward rather than back, to assert hope over fear, was joined, even as it is today. While the American story has not always--or even often--been heroic, and the outcome of that battle has never been certain, 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"--
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The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels
"Our current climate of partisan fury is not new, and in The Soul of America, Meacham shows us how what Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature" have repeatedly won the day. Painting surprising portraits of Lincoln, and other presidents, including Theodore Roosevelt, Ulysses S. Grant, 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 Klu 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, crucial turning points, the battle to lead the country to look forward rather than back, to assert hope over fear, was joined, even as it is today. While the American story has not always--or even often--been heroic, and the outcome of that battle has never been certain, 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"--
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The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels

The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels

by Jon Meacham
The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels

The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels

by Jon Meacham

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Overview

"Our current climate of partisan fury is not new, and in The Soul of America, Meacham shows us how what Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature" have repeatedly won the day. Painting surprising portraits of Lincoln, and other presidents, including Theodore Roosevelt, Ulysses S. Grant, 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 Klu 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, crucial turning points, the battle to lead the country to look forward rather than back, to assert hope over fear, was joined, even as it is today. While the American story has not always--or even often--been heroic, and the outcome of that battle has never been certain, 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"--

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780399589829
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Publication date: 04/30/2019
Pages: 416
Sales rank: 35,920
Product dimensions: 5.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

About The Author
Jon Meacham is a Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer. The author of the New York Times bestsellers Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, Franklin and Winston, Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush, and The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels, he is a distinguished visiting professor at Vanderbilt University, a contributing writer for The New York Times Book Review, and a fellow of the Society of American Historians. Meacham lives in Nashville and in Sewanee with his wife and children.

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Excerpted from "The Soul of America"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Jon Meacham.
Excerpted by permission of Diversified Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

Introduction: To Hope Rather Than To Fear 3

1 The Confidence Of The Whole People: Visions of the Presidency, the Ideas of Progress and Prosperity, and "We, the People" 32

2 The Long Shadow Of Appomattox: The Lost Cause, the Ku Klux Klan, and Reconstruction 78

3 With Soul Of Flame And Temper Of Steel: "The Melting Pot," TR and His "Bully Pulpit," and the Progressive Promise 114

4 A New And Good Thing In The World: The Triumph of Women's Suffrage, the Red Scare, and a New Klan 154

5 The Crisis Of The Old Order: The Great Depression, Huey Long, the New Deal, and America First 218

6 Have You No Sense Of Decency?: "Making Everyone Middle Class," the GI Bill, McCarthyism, and Modern Media 282

7 What The Hell Is The Presidency For?: "Segregation Forever," Kings Crusade, and LBJ in the Crucible 336

Conclusion: The First Duty Of An American Citizen 412

Author's Note and Acknowledgments 445

Notes 451

Bibliography 635

Illustration List and Credits 695

Index 703

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