This presidential election is a crucial one for American democracy. Like 1860, like 1932, like 1980–the races that gave us Lincoln, FDR, and Reagan—2024 will determine the nature of our politics for a long time to come. How is this year similar to those landmark contests—and how is it different? A historically rich presentation on the dynamics that are shaping the way we live now—and what’s at stake in the choice we face.

As difficult as the present is, the American past is the story of challenges overcome, crises resolved, and progress made. In this nonpartisan speech, Jon Meacham walks audiences through moments that have seemed intractable – which can include the Influenza Pandemic of 1918, the battle against polio, FDR’s reaction to the first days of the Depression, Winston Churchill’s decision to fight on against Hitler, and the Cuban Missile Crisis – to offer lessons for leaders in how to endure and prevail when everything appears hopeless.

This is an illuminating and entertaining presentation of music and history, presented by the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Jon Meacham. With a multimedia presentation of images and iconic selections from great American songs, Meacham offers a glimpse of the American past and a message for the present: that America has always been defined by strife and discord, yet has managed to move forward.

“The Battle-Hymn of the Republic” vs. “I Wish I Was in Dixie’s Land”; “Happy Days Are Here Again” vs. “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?”; “The Ballad of the Green Berets” vs. “Blowin in the Wind”; “Born in the U.S.A.” vs. “God Bless the USA”—the whole panoply of America can be traced—and more importantly, heard and felt—in the songs that echo through our public squares. This is engaging history that speaks to the moment and beyond.

In this presentation, Jon Meacham traces Lincoln’s moral and political development and how that links to present day America. Through Lincoln’s story, Jon illustrates the ways and means of politics in a democracy, the roots and durability of racism, and the capacity of conscience to shape events.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham explores what 21st-century leaders in different fields of endeavor can learn from the greatest moments of our common past.

This non-partisan presentation features lessons ranging from Jefferson's pragmatism and JFK's capacity to recover from his own mistakes to the management of conflicting egos as shown by Reagan and FDR and how George HW Bush dealt with the end of his Presidency. Meacham discusses how history can inform the decisions all of us make every day in positions that demand creative and innovative solutions.

In this contentious moment of debate about Confederate memorials and the place of history in an increasingly diverse nation, Jon Meacham describes – in reasonable, non-partisan, non-ideological terms – the long story of race in America and offers audiences new ways to assess what role emblems of the past should play in an increasingly diverse 21st century.

For some people, the key to understanding the media is ideology–that outlets are driven by politics rather than objectivity. There is much truth to this, and the 21st century is now more like the 18th and 19th in terms of partisan news. But there’s an even more fundamental point Americans should grasp: that many journalists are driven as much by conflict as by creeds. Jon Meacham brings renewed perspective to the issue of media bias, grounded in historical analysis and his own life’s work with print and television news media outlets. Meacham cuts to the core of media bias, explaining how politics and human nature shape the news you see and read.

In this nonpartisan, anecdotally rich presentation, Meacham describes previous moments of crisis and partisan deadlock in American history and suggests how previous generations — and we, in our own time — transcended hours of fear by heeding what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.” Examples range from Reconstruction and President Grant to woman’s suffrage and President Wilson to the crisis of the 1930s and FDR and the passage of civil rights legislation under LBJ.