Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and National Constitution Center Semiquincentennial Scholar Jon Meacham joins the Center to discuss The Promise of America: Reflections on Our Enduring Ideals. Presented by the National Constitution Center, The Promise of America is an inspirational collection of essays exploring the founding principles that continue to shape American democracy from the nation’s leading constitutional scholars. This print volume builds on the foundation of the Center’s Interactive Declaration of Independence and America at 250 Civic Toolkit, bringing together new essays, primary sources, and interpretive scholarship in a lasting, portable format designed to support deeper reflection and shared civic dialogue. Julie Silverbrook, chief content and learning officer at the National Constitution Center, moderates.
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Jon Meacham is a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer and semiquincentennial scholar at the National Constitution Center. He is the author of numerous New York Times bestsellers, including Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power; American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House; Franklin and Winston: A Portrait of Friendship; Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush; and The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels. Meacham is a distinguished visiting professor at Vanderbilt University, a contributing writer for The New York Times Book Review, and a fellow of the Society of American Historians.
Julie Silverbrook is chief content and learning officer at the National Constitution Center, where she leads the strategy, development, and delivery of the Center’s content, public programs, and educational initiatives, advancing its mission of nonpartisan constitutional education and civil dialogue.
Additional Resources
Excerpt from interview: Jon Meacham on the significance of the rule of law to ensuring the American promise.
Jon Meacham: The power of the rule of law, the power of the American promise is that we have created a politics that at its best is an arena of contention where if we win graciously and lose graciously, we are able to protect and defend ourselves by guarding and protecting and defending the dignity of others. If you take politics from being an arena of contention to being a battlefield of total war, if you go from seeing rivals and opponents to seeing enemies, you are breaking faith with these sacred documents. So the most conservative thing you can do, the way to make America truly great, is to keep faith with the principles of how we started.
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