Good Books!

The Soul of America.  By Jon Meacham

The Battle For Our Better Angels.

Jon Meacham is an author and historian and regular contributor on MSNBC. His views, while liberal-leaning and progressive, are presented in a thoughtful and measured manner; a stark contrast to many of the other TV pundits on both extremes of the political spectrum. In his recent book, The Soul of America, The Battle For Our Better Angels, Meacham conveys that same rational, cool-headed approach in highlighting partisan watershed events in American history. In a condensed history primer, Meacham reviews the Civil War and Reconstruction, the rise and fall (and rise again) of the Ku Klux Klan, anti-immigration sentiment following WWI, isolationism and the America First movement surrounding WWII, McCarthyism, anti-semitism and Civil Rights. Running parallel to reading this book, I found that many of the headlines of the past several weeks (this was not a quick read) uncannily echoed what I was reading on these pages. As was Meacham's admitted intention, the striking similarities between our less-than-admirable past and what is currently happening in our overwrought political climate, is oddly comforting. America has survived, in fact prospered, despite the rabid intolerance of the KKK, the misguided politics of George Wallace, the demagoguery of Eugene McCarthy, Huey Long and Father Coughlin. The subtitle of this book, of course, refers to Lincoln’s First Inaugural address delivered on the eve of the Civil War; "The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” An optimistic would argue that good prevails; that there is always light ahead even during the dark and dismal days. A realist, on the other hand would contend, “(S)he who forgets the past is doomed to repeat it.”