Based on John Meacham’s 2018 bestseller of the same name, The Soul of America follows the writer, journalist, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and presidential biographer as he offers his timely and invaluable insights into the country’s current political and historical moment by examining its past.
Produced by Emmy-award-winning Kunhardt Films (HBO’s True Justice: Bryan Stevenson’s Fight for Equality), the film journeys through Meacham’s life and career while focusing on pivotal historical events such as the women’s suffrage movement, the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, McCarthyism, and the struggle to pass Civil Rights legislation in the 1960s. Part political documentary and part biography, the film recognizes forces of hatred and division as recurring themes in American life, but ultimately gives hope that the lessons of the past may bring the nation closer to achieving its democratic ideals.