The Soul of AmericaThe Soul of America
the Battle for Our Better Angels
Title rated 4.15 out of 5 stars, based on 272 ratings(272 ratings)
Book, 2018
Current format, Book, 2018, First edition, Available .Our current climate of partisan fury is not new. Meacham explores contentious periods and how presidents and citizens came together to defeat the forces of anger, intolerance, and extremism-- what Abraham Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature," the ongoing struggle to lead the country to look forward rather than back, to assert hope over fear. Painting surprising portraits of presidents Grant, Roosevelt, Wilson, Truman, Eisenhower, and others, 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; 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 prior to World War II; the anti-Communist witch-hunts led by Senator Joseph McCarthy; and Lyndon Johnson's crusade against Jim Crow. 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."--Jacket.
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- New York, N.Y. : Random House, [2018], ©2018
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