Photo courtesy of Royce Carlton
For some, it takes years to find the right path.
But for Jon Meacham, that path became clear at an early age.
Meacham grew up in Tennessee, and says he knew he wanted to be a journalist before he graduated high school.
“I was hoping to find a way to marry twin interests in writing and in politics, so journalism was a natural fit,” says Meacham.
Meacham’s grandfather also had a substantial influence on his future endeavors as a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian. His grandfather worked as a judge in Chattanooga and penned a series of novels about the East India Company during the Napoleonic wars.
“He gave me a great love of history and of politics – a love that has stood me in good stead ever since,” Meacham says.
Meacham will speak at the Jeanne B. McCoy Community Center for the Arts on May 11 as part of the New Albany Community Foundation’s Jefferson Series.
Growing up on Missionary Ridge, a Civil War battlefield overlooking Chattanooga, also played a role in Meacham’s future work. He didn’t have to go far to learn about the past.
“To me, history was tactile, not clinical,” says Meacham, who has homes in Nashville and in Sewanee with his wife and children.
Meacham graduated from Sewanee: The University of the South with a degree in English literature. He kick-started his career with The Chattanooga Times, which he says prepared him immeasurably for later successes.
“I loved the newspaper and the people there,” Meacham says. “I’ve rarely encountered anything in Washington, D.C. or in New York that I didn’t encounter in some form or another very early on. Human nature is pretty constant.”
Meacham would go on to serve as managing editor of Newsweek for eight years before taking over as editor from 2006-2010 and overseeing all of the editorial department’s day-to-day operations
He now serves as executive vice president and executive editor for Random House. Delving into nonfiction was an organic progression in his career, Meacham says.
“It was a natural step,” he says. “I always loved big, nonfiction (books), and knew pretty early on that I wanted to try my hand at it.”
As it turns out, Meacham was a natural. American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in the biography category. Meacham has put together a broad assortment of books, many based around former presidents.
These works include Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship, American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power and, most recently, Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush. Bush also happens to be the subject of one of Meacham’s more interesting interviews.
“I am very grateful that there have been many memorable moments, but perhaps my favorite conversation was a joint interview with George H.W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev about their relationship and the end of the Cold War,” Meacham says.
When it comes to writing and researching sometimes controversial figures, Meacham says he tries not to think too much about the reactions of others.
“There’s really no one method (to researching),” he says. “It’s all about the archives at first, and then about the writing and fact-checking. The important thing is to try to write a book that you think is as true as it possibly can be.”
Hannah Bealer is an editor. Feedback welcome at gbishop@cityscenemediagroup.com.
How to go:
An Evening with John Meacham
The Art of Leadership: Lessons Learned from the American Presidency
7 p.m., May 11, Jeanne B. McCoy Community Center for the Arts
Tickets start at $26 and can be purchased from the CAPA ticket center at 614-469-0939 or on www.ticketmaster.com.
Jon Meacham reading list
Voices in Our Blood: America’s Best on the Civil Rights Movement – Jon Meacham served as the editor for this anthology on the civil rights movement. It contains write-ups from some of the nation’s best writers, including Alice Walker, John Steinbeck and Maya Angelou.
Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship – President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill are best known as the two figures who led the charge in the World War II victory, but their long-lasting friendship is another point of fascination. Meacham adds that Churchill is the one historical figure he’d love to sit down for dinner with. “The conversation would be amazing – and so would the cigars,” he says.
American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation – Meacham offers insight on how religion influenced the Founding Fathers’ lives and the formation of the United States.
American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House – This compelling look at one of the country’s most controversial presidents won Meacham the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in the biography category.
Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power – This widely-praised biography on the country’s third president made it to the No. 1 spot on the New York Times bestseller list after its 2012 release.
Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush – The patriarch of the Bush family saw everything from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the end of communism. Meacham’s biography covers his life and presidency through the use of personal diary entries and interviews with the former president and his family.
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