Jon Meacham - The Soul of America - Book Review

Journalist/historian Jon Meacham writes about critical moments in American history with an underlying note of optimism.  We've been thru dark moments in our past before and we've come out okay.  We can do it again he says.    I hope so but I am more pessimistic than Meacham.

He starts with Strom Thurmond and the Dixiecrats who nominated Thurmond for President in 1948 at the Birmingham Civic Center, now called Boutwell Auditorium.  President Truman, who comes in for lavish praise in the book, prevailed even while losing the South.

Hope rather than fear.  Maybe that's the theme of Meacham's message.

TR pushed the Constitutional envelope.  He felt the POTUS could do anything the Constitution didn't expressly prohibit.  P. 36

The character of the President is critical, and it manifests itself in temperament."  P. 37

Meacham does a good job dealing with the "long shadow from Appomattox."  The Confederacy lost the war, but ever since has tried to win the long battle for their cause to prevail with much success.

"For, as the Greeks knew, character is destiny."  P. 40

Our history and our politics even now are unintelligible without first appreciating the roots of white Southern discontent about the verdict of the Civil War."  P. 53

The enormity of the Confederate defeat can be hard to swallow.  The Lost Cause proponents including the current POTUS are still trying to justify it.

There is a connection to the KKK revival in the 20's to Harpersville, Alabama.  P. 109

The KKK is the Mussolini of America.  P. 125

Huey Long of Louisiana preached redistribution of wealth.  It's hard to imagine anyone today pushing such a socialistic message.  Then again, it's hard to imagine another great depression.  P. 143

Fear of fascism in this country was real in the 1930's.  P. 144

FDR's Japanese internment policy was his greatest failure.  P. 165

Hugo Black upheld Roosevelt's internment actions.  P. 166

Did FDR do enough to save the lives of Jews?  I do not know.  P. 167

His core conviction was that to save Jews meant defeating Hitler.  P. 168

The post WW11 creation of the American middle class was one of the greatest achievements in world history.  P. 178

TR appears to be the first POTUS to use the term middle class.  P. 179

To be middle class is to have enough money  to provide for yourself and your family without living hand to mouth, but not enough to positively guarantee the future.  Nothing can be taken for granted, and there is always the possibility that your prosperity may fall victim to time and chance.  P. 180
-Economist Ganesh Sitaraman

Hamiltonian means---centralized decision-making---while speaking in Jeffersonian rhetorical terms---that government is best which governs least.  P. 180

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history."  P. 181
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves."  P. 199

Since I was too young in the early 50's to know what was going on, I will never understand McCarthyism.  So be it.