Presidential historian and Tennessean Jon Meacham discussed his book The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels with Senator Lamar Alexander on July 8 in an event sponsored by Friends of the Knox County Public Library and Union Ave Books.

In The Soul of America, Meacham helps us understand the present moment in American politics by looking back at critical times in our country’s history when hope overcame division. He tells us that what Abraham Lincoln called the­ “better angels of our nature” have found a way to prevail again and again during dark times throughout our country’s history.

Here are excerpts from that conversation.