The Soul of America
The Battle for Our Better Angels
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Narrated by:
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Fred Sanders
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Jon Meacham
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By:
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Jon Meacham
About this listen
Number-one New York Times best seller
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.
Named one of the best books of the year by NPR, the Christian Science Monitor, and 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.
Praise for The Soul of America:
“Brilliant, fascinating, timely... With compelling narratives of past eras of strife and disenchantment, Meacham offers wisdom for our own time.” (Walter Isaacson)
“Gripping and inspiring, The Soul of America is Jon Meacham’s declaration of his faith in America.” (Newsday)
“Meacham gives readers a long-term perspective on American history and a reason to believe the soul of America is ultimately one of kindness and caring, not rancor and paranoia.” (USA Today)
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Critic reviews
"This is a brilliant, fascinating, timely, and above all profoundly important book." (Walter Isaacson)
"Rather than curse the darkness, Jon Meacham, with his usual eloquence and surpassing knowledge of our history, has offered us all the sublime and calming reassurance that as threatening as so much of the present moment seems, Americans have weathered such storms before and come out on the other side with fresh and progressive horizons. This is a beautifully expressed and convincing prayer to summon our own 'better angels' to meet the obvious challenges of today." (Ken Burns)
"Meacham has become one of America's most earnest and thoughtful biographers and historians.... Meacham gives readers a long-term perspective on American history and a reason to believe the soul of America is ultimately one of kindness and caring, not rancor and paranoia. Finally, Meacham provides advice to find our better angels - enter the arena, resist tribalism, respect facts and deploy reason, find a critical balance and keep history in mind. He’s provided a great way to do it." (USA Today)
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During 1954-1955, John F. Kennedy, then a US senator, chose eight of his historical colleagues to profile for their acts of astounding integrity in the face of overwhelming opposition. These heroes include John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Thomas Hart Benton, and Robert A. Taft. Awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1957, Profiles in Courage - now reissued, featuring a new introduction by Caroline Kennedy as well as Robert Kennedy's foreword written for the memorial edition of the volume in 1964 - resounds with timeless lessons.
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Abridged
- By Tom R on 01-04-17
By: John F. Kennedy
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Lincoln on Leadership for Today
- Abraham Lincoln's Approach to Twenty-First-Century Issues
- By: Donald T. Phillips
- Narrated by: Donald T. Phillips
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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The author of the classic best seller Lincoln on Leadership answers the question: How would President Lincoln handle the pressing crises of our modern world? Abraham Lincoln is recognized as one of history's finest leaders, a great president when the United States was under tremendous strain. But suppose he were alive today. How would Lincoln deal with today's high-pressure issues, from politics to business?
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Leveraging Lincoln to drive a personal agenda
- By J on 07-18-17
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Machine Made
- Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics
- By: Terry Golway
- Narrated by: Adam Grupper
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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For decades, history has considered Tammany Hall, New York's famous political machine, shorthand for the worst of urban politics: graft, crime, and patronage personified by notoriously corrupt characters. Infamous crooks like William "Boss" Tweed dominate traditional histories of Tammany, distorting our understanding of a critical chapter of American political history. In Machine Made, historian and New York City journalist Terry Golway convincingly dismantles these stereotypes.
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A missed opportunity
- By Kathy on 05-27-15
By: Terry Golway
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The American Experiment
- By: James MacGregor Burns
- Narrated by: Mark Ashby
- Length: 88 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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James MacGregor Burns’s stunning trilogy of American history, spanning the birth of the Constitution to the final days of the Cold War. In these three volumes, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner James MacGregor Burns chronicles with depth and narrative panache the most significant cultural, economic, and political events of American history.
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American History ABCs
- By Michael on 06-16-15
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Young Radicals
- In the War for American Ideals
- By: Jeremy McCarter
- Narrated by: Jeremy McCarter
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Where do we find our ideals? What does it mean to live for them - and to risk dying for them? For Americans during World War I, these weren't abstract questions. Young Radicals tells the story of five activists, intellectuals, and troublemakers who agitated for freedom and equality in the hopeful years before the war, then fought to defend those values in a country pitching into violence and chaos.
By: Jeremy McCarter
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Henry Clay
- The Man Who Would Be President
- By: James C. Klotter
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster
- Length: 19 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Charismatic, charming, and one of the best orators of his era, Henry Clay seemed to have it all. He offered a comprehensive plan of change for America, and he directed national affairs as Speaker of the House, as Secretary of State to John Quincy Adams - the man he put in office - and as acknowledged leader of the Whig party. As the broker of the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850, Henry Clay fought to keep a young nation united when westward expansion and slavery threatened to tear it apart. Yet, despite his talent and achievements, Henry Clay never became president.
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Wonderful book by a talented writer and historian
- By Timothy on 08-24-18
By: James C. Klotter
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Woodrow Wilson
- A Biography
- By: John Milton Cooper
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 35 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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John Milton Cooper, Jr., is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s preeminent Woodrow Wilson biographers. This thoroughly researched profile of America’s 28th president is universally hailed for its scholarship and insight into the life and career ofone of the nation’s most polarizing leaders.
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On the outside looking in
- By Doris on 09-02-13
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Moyers on Democracy
- By: Bill Moyers
- Narrated by: Bill Moyers
- Length: 5 hrs and 22 mins
- Abridged
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People know Bill Moyers mostly from his many years of path-breaking journalism on television. But he is also one of America's most sought-after public speakers. His appearances draw sell-out crowds across the country and are among the most reproduced on the Web. Richly insightful, and alive with a fierce, abiding love for our country, Moyers on Democracy is essential listening.
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You can't help but think critically
- By Ida F. on 09-29-09
By: Bill Moyers
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A Self-Made Man
- The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1849
- By: Sidney Blumenthal
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 21 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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The first of a multivolume history of Lincoln as a political genius - from his obscure beginnings to his presidency, his assassination, and the overthrow of his post-Civil War dreams of Reconstruction. This first volume traces Lincoln from his painful youth, describing himself as "a slave", to his emergence as the man we recognize as Abraham Lincoln.
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I Can't Wait for Volume II!
- By NC-N-NC on 06-14-16
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Gandhi & Churchill
- By: Arthur Herman
- Narrated by: John Curless
- Length: 29 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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In this fast-paced epic, best-selling historian and master storyteller Arthur Herman spotlights two giants of the 20th century. Gandhi & Churchill shows how their 40-year rivalry revolutionized India and the British Empire, paving the way for a new era. Gandhi championed India's independence, Churchill the British Empire.
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A motif that works well
- By Maine Dave on 11-30-09
By: Arthur Herman
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Leadership
- By: Doris Kearns Goodwin
- Narrated by: Beau Bridges, David Morse, Jay O. Sanders, and others
- Length: 18 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Are leaders born or made? Where does ambition come from? How does adversity affect the growth of leadership? Does the man make the times or do the times make the man? In Leadership, Goodwin draws upon four of the presidents she has studied most closely - Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson (in civil rights) - to show how they first recognized leadership qualities within themselves, and were recognized by others as leaders.
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What makes a president great?
- By tru britty on 09-25-18
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Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power
- By: Jon Meacham
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann, Jon Meacham
- Length: 18 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In this magnificent biography, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of American Lion and Franklin and Winston brings vividly to life an extraordinary man and his remarkable times. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power gives us Jefferson the politician and president, a great and complex human being forever engaged in the wars of his era.
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A Man and Biography Relevant to Our Day
- By Darwin8u on 11-14-12
By: Jon Meacham
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Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story
- King Legacy Series #1
- By: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s account of the first successful large-scale application of nonviolent resistance in America is comprehensive, revelatory, and intimate. King described his book as "the chronicle of 50,000 Negroes who took to heart the principles of nonviolence, who learned to fight for their rights with the weapon of love, and who, in the process, acquired a new estimate of their own human worth."
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A look into the mind of Dr King
- By Georgia Burns on 02-06-16
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Beginning with “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” and ending with “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,” Meacham captures for the listener how these words epitomize Jesus’s message of love, not hate; grace, not rage; and, rather than vengeance, extraordinary mercy. For each saying, Meacham composes an essay on the origins of Christianity and how Jesus’s final words created a foundation for oral and written traditions that upended the very order of the world.
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Franklin and Winston Review
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A Man and Biography Relevant to Our Day
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A Winner
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what you weren't taught in school
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An intimate and revealing portrait of civil rights icon and longtime US congressman John Lewis, linking his life to the painful quest for justice in America from the 1950s to the present - from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Soul of America.
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Absolutely remarkable!
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Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were the greatest leaders of “the Greatest Generation.” In Franklin and Winston, Jon Meacham explores the fascinating relationship between the two men who piloted the free world to victory in World War II.
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Franklin and Winston Review
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Beloved and hated, venerated and reviled, Andrew Jackson was an orphan who fought his way to the pinnacle of power, bending the nation to his will in the cause of democracy. Jackson's election in 1828 ushered in a new and lasting era in which the people, not distant elites, were the guiding force in American politics. Democracy made its stand in the Jackson years, and he gave voice to the hopes and the fears of a restless, changing nation facing challenging times at home and threats abroad.
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Drawing on President Bush’s personal diaries, on the diaries of his wife, Barbara, and on extraordinary access to the 41st president and his family, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham paints an intimate and surprising portrait of an intensely private man who led the nation through tumultuous times.
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Fair and insightful
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The Call to Serve
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In honor of the one hundredth anniversary of George H. W. Bush’s birth, this visually stunning chronicle features never-before-published photos and memories celebrating the forty-first president’s vision of leadership as service to country—curated by Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Jon Meacham.
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A overall good reflection
- By R. Mark Moore on 07-14-24
By: Jon Meacham
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Impeachment
- An American History
- By: Jon Meacham, Timothy Naftali, Peter Baker, and others
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Impeachment is a double-edged sword. Though it was designed to check tyrants, Thomas Jefferson also called impeachment “the most formidable weapon for the purpose of a dominant faction that was ever contrived”. On the one hand, it nullifies the will of voters, the basic foundation of all representative democracies. On the other, its absence from the Constitution would leave the country vulnerable to despotic leadership.
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May not scratch your personal itch, but read it anyway!
- By Marshall on 11-17-18
By: Jon Meacham, and others
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In the Hands of the People
- Thomas Jefferson on Equality, Faith, Freedom, Compromise, and the Art of Citizenship
- By: Jon Meacham - editor, Annette Gordon-Reed - afterword
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Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham offers a collection of inspiring words about how to be a good citizen, from Thomas Jefferson and others, and reminds us why our country’s founding principles are still so important today.
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Uncritical collection of quotes by & about Jefferson
- By DP on 12-27-20
By: Jon Meacham - editor, and others
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Thomas Jefferson: President and Philosopher
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Thomas Jefferson was the third president of the United States. He was one of the authors of the Declaration of Independence. But he was also a lawyer and an ambassador, an inventor and a scientist. He had a wide range of interests and hobbies, but his consuming interest was the survival and success of the United States.
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Written for young readers, but appealing for all
- By David on 02-25-15
By: Jon Meacham
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The Unraveling
- Reflections on Politics Without Ethics and Democracy in Crisis
- By: Bob Bauer, Jon Meacham - foreword
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Part memoir, part rumination on the declining moral compass of the American political class, The Unraveling is the first book to place restoring political ethics at the center of the renewal of American democracy. Politics is a brutal game, but Bauer asks where does the line fall between the "hardball" of politics and attacks on the very foundation of democracy? Looking back on forty-six years in the political arena, Bauer tries to better grasp what has gone wrong and to understand what shaped his own decisions and actions.
By: Bob Bauer, and others
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Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were the greatest leaders of "the Greatest Generation". In Franklin and Winston, Jon Meacham explores the fascinating relationship between the two men who piloted the free world to victory in World War II. It was a crucial friendship, and a unique one: a president and a prime minister spending enormous amounts of time together and exchanging nearly 2,000 messages.
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Parallel of Two Extraordinary Lives
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Team of Rivals
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On May 18, 1860, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, and Abraham Lincoln waited in their hometowns for the results from the Republican National Convention in Chicago. When Lincoln emerged as the victor, his rivals were dismayed and angry. Throughout the turbulent 1850s, each had energetically sought the presidency as the conflict over slavery was leading inexorably to secession and civil war.
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Beautiful, Heartbreaking, and Informative
- By JJ on 09-10-12
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Presidential Courage
- Brave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789-1989
- By: Michael Beschloss
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- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
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Michael Beschloss' dramatic and inspiring saga explores crucial times when courageous president changed the history of the United States. With surprising new sources and a dazzling command of history and human character, Beschloss brings these flawed, complex men and their wives, families, friends, and foes to life as if in a gripping novel. Never have we had a more intimate, behind-the-scenes view of Presidents coping with the supreme dilemmas of their lives.
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Disappointing
- By Donna on 05-13-07
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Truman
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 54 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Hailed by critics as an American masterpiece, David McCullough's sweeping biography of Harry S. Truman captured the heart of the nation. The life and times of the 33rd president of the United States, Truman provides a deeply moving look at an extraordinary, singular American.
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That Mousy Little Man From Missouri Revisited
- By Sara on 07-23-15
By: David McCullough
What listeners say about The Soul of America
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- G. Hernandez
- 06-12-18
The soul of America is strong
We’re living a part of American history that divides the nation like few other eras. No matter what is happening today Jon Meacham adequately describes that the soul of America is resilient and will withstand the test of time—no matter what’s thrown at it. Meacham and Fred Sanders take us on a journey throughout history that shows that we’ve been here before and will be here for years to come. Democracy is stronger than any one person or group that tries to tear it apart.
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- R. Blanton
- 06-14-18
Hopeful message for these dark times
Donald Trump and the dark impulses in the population that enabled his ascent are nothing new. It’s both comforting to realize that despite making the same type of mistakes over and over again, with time the people correct the mistakes. However of course still troubling that this is the first time one of the worst of our demagogues has become president.
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- Tom
- 07-19-18
Combination History Lesson, Sermon and Pep Talk
I’ve admired Meacham’s analysis of current events for years from his appearances on News shows. His has often been the voice of sanity grounded in historical fact in times of questioning, fear and real crisis in our era.
He comes forward again with this book of history and encouragement that often reads like a prayer for hope in times of distress. His opening sermon recounts many quotations from wise leaders of the past to preach that we Americans have survived and often overcome monumental challenges in our history. It is a lesson worth remembering now.
He goes on to describe critical milestones in the life of America and some of the characters and movements that peopled those challenges and led us to overcome them:
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- Musicaldreamer
- 07-11-18
Inspiration Just When We Need it Most!
So educational and inspiring with capable and fitting narrations. Jon Meacham is a calm and measured, yet powerful force in helping the reader more fully understand that we've been to this place before in our nation's history and politics, and again we are called to denounce fear tactics, look forward instead of back, speak kindly to one another through ongoing dialogue, and vote! Only then can our better angels prevail. Truly a masterful look at our nation's history as it leads up to our present social and moral crisis. Such an inspiring book for these unsteady times in our nation, complete with a plethora of fitting quotes from a variety of consequential leaders. Well done, Mr. Meacham.
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- donna k
- 06-06-18
A must read!
Meacham has captured the essential historical ideals that have made America unique among nations. His writing is vivid and inviting and his message is one of hope despite his awareness that these ideals are under siege by the current administration. The narrator is competent but the preface and epilogue, which are narrated by the author, make this audiobook very special.
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- Doris
- 08-24-18
An Excellent Reminder
Thank you, John Meacham, for reminding us that we have been at these crossroads many times before and our Democracy has prevailed. And for the sobering realization that we are not perfect, that we never have been, but we have also never stopped striving for perfection. I feel so much better for having read this.
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- Dian Gentry
- 11-05-18
Required reading
All those who care for this country should read, and absorb, this book. It is a lesson in the necessity and value of selfless leadership and the role such leaders have had at critical moments in American history. Thank you, Mr. Meacham, for reminding us of these better angels.
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- H. Lewis
- 02-01-19
Some things are worth fighting for.
I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Progress can come during difficult times and from imperfect people. Always strive to be better than we are.
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- Ellen Shannon
- 07-20-18
Excellent read.
Interesting reading with many illustrations and examples to highlight key points. Well researched and enlightening.
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- Robert
- 10-21-18
Timely
Refreshing to be reminded of some of the great leaders we have had in this country and how what made them great was their ability to sacrifice in order to do the right thing.
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