July 8, 2018
First Presbyterian Church
Renowned presidential historian and Tennessee native Jon Meacham will discuss his latest work, The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels.
The current political climate of partisan fury is not new. In The Soul of America Meacham describes how the nation survived such conflict before, as time and again, what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature” found a way to lead us forward rather than back, to assert hope over fear. Meacham paints surprising portraits of presidents since the Civil War and brings to life turning points in history to include Reconstruction and the birth of the Lost Cause; the backlash against immigrants in WWI; the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s; the fight for women’s rights; the anti-Communist witch-hunts led by McCarthy; and Lyndon Johnson’s crusade against Jim Crow.
Meacham is a Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential historian. A contributing writer for The New York Times Book Review and a contributing editor of Time magazine, he is the author of the New York Times best-sellers Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush; Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power; American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House; American Gospel; and Franklin and Winston. Meacham lives in Nashville.
This author event is sponsored by Friends of the Knox County Public Library and Union Ave Books. Tickets are $35 and can be purchased at Union Ave Books or online at jonmeachamknoxville.brownpapertickets.com. The ticket price includes a copy of the book. U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander will join Meacham on stage.
Located at First Presbyterian Church
Sunday, July 8 - 7pm