Jon Meacham has written some fine biographies of Americans, including one on Andrew Jackson that won a Pulitzer Prize. Now it's not a person Meacham is examining, but a whole country.
That's the gist of his latest work, The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels. In the book, Meacham points out several times in American history when we were at each other's throats, figuratively if not actually, and managed to come through.
The key: finding and accentuating those better angels. The author joins us for an exploration of our shared story.