Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize winning author, and Karl Rove, political strategist, author, and commentator, will discuss Meacham’s optimistic message for a divided America in his newest book, The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels, at the Mississippi Book Festival Aug. 18.
The new work, in which he takes an encouraging look at the nation’s resilient past, is Meacham’s eighth book. Citing America’s current cultural and political rifts and the roles of past Presidents who guided the country through earlier difficult periods, Meacham draws on their challenges to make his case for hope for America’s present day, as well as its future.
Meacham’s previous books include the New York Times bestseller biographies of George Herbert Walker Bush, Andrew Jackson, and Thomas Jefferson. A distinguished visiting professor at Vanderbilt University, Meacham is a contributing writer to the New York Times Book Review, and a contributing editor of Time, and he has written for a number of other publications. He also regularly appears as a political commentator on several television talk shows. A former editor and vice president at Random House, he holds honorary doctorate degrees at more than a half dozen universities and colleges.
“To know what has come before is to be armed against despair.”
– JON MEACHAM—
in “The Soul of America”
During his forty-plus years in politics, Karl Rove has been a major factor in the rise of the Republican Party. In addition to the many campaigns he has run and candidates he has advised, he was tapped by President George W. Bush to serve as his Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor. Today Rove writes a weekly op-ed for the Wall Street Journal and serves as a TV analyst for Fox News. He is also the author of The Triumph of William McKinley: Why the Election of 1896 Still Matters (2015) and New York Timesbestseller Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight (2010).
A native of Colorado, Rove now lives in Austin, Texas. He was inducted into the American Association of Political Consultants Hall of Fame in 2012.
“At its best, politics is about advancing human dignity and prosperity. . . For me, it has been a joy.”
– KARL ROVE—
in “Courage and Consequence”
