Jon Meacham
Jon Meacham
Jon Ellis Meachamis executive editor and executive vice president at Random House. He is a former editor-in-chief of Newsweek, a contributing editor to Time magazine, editor-at-large of WNET, and a commentator on politics, history, and religious faith in America. He won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEditor
Date of Birth20 May 1969
CountryUnited States of America
reality class achievement
The middle class, one of the great achievements in history, is becoming more of a relic than a reality.
heart simple reality
Among the many problems with taking the Bible literally is it reduces the most mysterious and complex of realities to simple - even simplistic - terms. Yes, scripture speaks of fire and damnation and eternal bliss, but the Bible is the product of human hands and hearts, and much of the imagery is allegorical, not meteorological.
christian jesus reality
If heaven is understood more as God's space on earth than as an ethereal region apart from the essential reality we know, then what happens on earth matters even more than we think, for the Christian life becomes a continuation of the unfolding work of Jesus, who will one day return to set the world to rights.
children real hard-work
The perennial conviction that those who work hard and play by the rules will be rewarded with a more comfortable present and a stronger future for their children faces assault from just about every direction. That great enemy of democratic capitalism, economic inequality, is real and growing.
wise real political
A wise nation should cultivate a political spirit that allows opponents to cooperate without fearing an automatic execution from their core supporters. Who knew that the real rogues in American politics would be the ones who dare to get along?
activists convinced history humility monopoly move themselves
Too many activists have convinced themselves that they have a monopoly on truth. A little humility and a sense of history could move us all forward.
comforting great private public sector wonderful
It would be wonderful if the public sector were always great, or always terrible; or if the private sector were always great, or always terrible. Alas, reality is more complicated than comforting caricatures. Governments fail, and corporations fail.
attacks birthplace desperate religion sell tend
Attacks on a politician's identity - questioning Romney's religion, say, or Obama's birthplace - tend to come when an opponent is desperate and can't sell himself.
address best cultural deliver economic measured middle nation perhaps profound rises speak state whoever
Whoever rises to deliver the inaugural Address of 2013 will speak to a nation in which the American Dream is under profound economic and cultural pressure. This is perhaps best measured by the state of the middle class.
faction human intrinsic next
We are now living in a post-Roosevelt, post-Reagan universe. What comes next will not be post-partisan, because faction is an intrinsic human impulse.
fight sounds
But they had a fight about it. That sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it?
allow capacity factor lies life power religious system
The power of the American system of republicanism lies in its capacity to allow religious belief to be a competing, not a controlling, factor in American life.
They wanted to kill each other, or to kill for each other.
churchill confronted connection diplomatic emotional incredibly leaders lessons powerful roosevelt terror today tyranny yields
The powerful emotional connection between Roosevelt and Churchill and how they confronted tyranny and terror is an incredibly contemporary story that yields important lessons for leaders today on a personal, political, and diplomatic level.