From the author of the international bestseller "The Western Way of War" comes a fresh, exciting look at three armies whose intense spirit of mission, coupled with the genius of their leaders, led them to triumph. Maps.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jon Meacham helps us understand the present moment in American politics and life by looking back at critical times in our history when hope overcame division and fear. ONE OF OPRAH’S “BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH” • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • The Christian Science Monitor • Southern Living Our current climate of partisan fury is not new, and in The Soul of America Meacham shows us how what Abraham Lincoln called the “better angels of our nature” have repeatedly won the day. Painting surprising portraits of Lincoln and other presidents, including Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and Lyndon B. Johnson, and illuminating the courage of such influential citizen activists as Martin Luther King, Jr., early suffragettes Alice Paul and Carrie Chapman Catt, civil rights pioneers Rosa Parks and John Lewis, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and Army-McCarthy hearings lawyer Joseph N. Welch, Meacham brings vividly to life turning points in American history. He writes about the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the birth of the Lost Cause; the backlash against immigrants in the First World War and the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s; the fight for women’s rights; the demagoguery of Huey Long and Father Coughlin and the isolationist work of America First in the years before World War II; the anti-Communist witch-hunts led by Senator Joseph McCarthy; and Lyndon Johnson’s crusade against Jim Crow. Each of these dramatic hours in our national life have been shaped by the contest to lead the country to look forward rather than back, to assert hope over fear—a struggle that continues even now. While the American story has not always—or even often—been heroic, we have been sustained by a belief in progress even in the gloomiest of times. In this inspiring book, Meacham reassures us, “The good news is that we have come through such darkness before”—as, time and again, Lincoln’s better angels have found a way to prevail. Praise for The Soul of America “Brilliant, fascinating, timely . . . With compelling narratives of past eras of strife and disenchantment, Meacham offers wisdom for our own time.”—Walter Isaacson “Gripping and inspiring, The Soul of America is Jon Meacham’s declaration of his faith in America.”—Newsday “Meacham gives readers a long-term perspective on American history and a reason to believe the soul of America is ultimately one of kindness and caring, not rancor and paranoia.”—USA Today

The founder and former chief executive of the Vanguard mutual funds argues for a return to a governance structure in which owners' capital that has been put at risk is used in their interests rather than in the interests of corporate and financial managers.

An award-winning political journalist for The Atlantic tells the inside story of how the embattled Democratic Party, seeking a direction for its future during the Trump years, successfully regained the White House. The 2020 presidential campaign was a defining moment for America. As Donald Trump and his nativist populism cowed the Republican Party into submission, many Democrats—haunted by Hillary Clinton’s shocking loss in 2016 and the resulting four-year-long identity crisis—were convinced that he would be unbeatable. Their party and the country, it seemed, might never recover. How, then, did Democrats manage to win the presidency, especially after the longest primary race with the biggest field ever? How did they keep themselves united through an internal struggle between newly empowered progressives and establishment forces—playing out against a pandemic, an economic crisis, and a new racial reckoning? Edward-Isaac Dovere’s Battle for the Soul is the searing, fly-on-the-wall account of the Democrats’ journey through recalibration and rebirth. Dovere traces this process: from the early days in the wilderness of the post-Obama era to the jockeying of potential candidates; from the backroom battles and exhausting campaigns to the unlikely triumph of the man few expected to win; and on through the inauguration and the insurrection at the Capitol. Dovere draws on years of on-the-ground reporting and contemporaneous conversations with the key players—whether with Pete Buttigieg in his hotel suite in Des Moines an hour before he won the Iowa caucuses or with Joe Biden in his first-ever interview in the Oval Office—as well as with aides, advisors, and voters. Offering unparalleled access and an insider’s command of the campaign, Battle for the Soul takes a compelling look at the policies, politics, and people, as well as the often absurd process of running for president. This fresh and timely story brings you on the trail, into the private rooms, and along to eavesdrop on critical conversations. You will never see campaigns or this turning point in our history the same way again.

The effects of war refuse to remain local: they persist through the centuries, sometimes in unlikely ways far removed from the military arena. In Ripples of Battle, the acclaimed historian Victor Davis Hanson weaves wide-ranging military and cultural history with his unparalleled gift for battle narrative as he illuminates the centrality of war in the human experience. The Athenian defeat at Delium in 424 BC brought tactical innovations to infantry fighting; it also assured the influence of the philosophy of Socrates, who fought well in the battle. Nearly twenty-three hundred years later, the carnage at Shiloh and the death of the brilliant Southern strategist Albert Sidney Johnson inspired a sense of fateful tragedy that would endure and stymie Southern culture for decades. The Northern victory would also bolster the reputation of William Tecumseh Sherman, and inspire Lew Wallace to pen the classic Ben Hur. And, perhaps most resonant for our time, the agony of Okinawa spurred the Japanese toward state-sanctioned suicide missions, a tactic so uncompromising and subversive, it haunts our view of non-Western combatants to this day.

During a ghost-evoking seance, a group of young people noticed that the plate moved, and that’s pretty much all they remember. They dispersed and never talked about it. One of them converted after more than 20 years and started to analyses what had happened. It all started with youthful stupidity, walking away from God. A friend committed suicide, and so they decided to call up ghosts to find out why he did it. But something happened. No one remembers exactly what it was, but at least for one of them, it changed his life completely. He was a young 15-year-old practicing Catholicism and even thinking about becoming a priest. Everything suddenly changed. In a very strange way, all the obstacles he faced in life disappeared. He passed exams for which he was not prepared, and teachers with whom he had conflicts left. That’s how it started. Later, there were bigger things. Money and success At a certain point in his life, he came to the conclusion that the impossible did not exist. He felt that he could do anything. He had dedicated people around him. What others did, for example, for a few days in seven people, they were able to do in one day in two. That’s how it looked to someone looking from the sidelines, but the reality was quite different. Everything he got never met all his needs. If he needed money, he got it, often inexplicably, but never so much that it was enough to take care of an issue 100 percent. It was like building a house without all the necessary materials. You make a foundation but don’t have enough cement. The result is that you build on sand. You put in windows and doors but don’t have all you need, so you only put them in the front of the house and leave holes in the back. A nice facade, but unstable and in danger of collapse. When he perceives that he could lose everything, he joins a secret organisation—let’s call it occult. However, for everything he gets, you have to pay a terrible price. Not material but mental. The soul sinks into darkness. Thoughts become depressive. Life teeters on the brink of suicide. When his life was already just a ruin in the material and spiritual spheres, he unexpectedly gets an offer to go to a remote place, practically a wilderness. He goes and, in silence, slowly begins to understand what happened. He decides to return to God. He faces the final battle—the battle for his soul. However, he is further dismantled by the conviction of his own greatness and does it alone without God. He loses and gives up everything. Knowing that it’s over, he tries to pray but can’t recall the words of the prayer. He feels only a terrible emptiness, and death is already inside him. It is at this moment of total defeat and total collapse that he sees a helping hand. God saves him, and from that moment on, he is never alone again. Always with God, always. However, life in hell leaves a stigma that hurts. Every look back causes terrible pain in the soul. You don’t have to go through it. All you have to do is think before you do something. Thinking doesn’t hurt, but rejecting God hurts a lot. It is a pain that never passes. All the riches of the world given by Satan will not satisfy your thirst; you will always lack them. Only God has the water of life that is able to soothe your soul. Always remember this, always.

The Devil made me do it is a bullshit statement! Come on this journey with me and I promise it will be a rollercoaster of emotions but worth the ride as we discuss the good and the bad humanity has to offer. But here is the crazy thing, good and bad are not always easily distinguishable from one another and evil, true evil, dirties the window we try and view each of our worlds through. How do I know? Inside this book is a controversial conversation that will challenge you, anger you, enlighten you and maybe even change you. It will challenge your egregores; that group think you didn’t even know you belong to and the sources of information you rely on. The path to being a better person, to yourself and others, is easy to see, but not always easy to walk. Come join me on this journey of self-evaluation and discovery. You won’t forget it!