The Books That Shaped America w/ Jon Meacham (Part 1)

The Books That Shaped America w/ Jon Meacham (Part 1)

From This Day (An America 250 History Show) by Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia

June 30, 2026 · 54 min

About this episode

The episode discusses influential books that have shaped American history with guest Jon Meacham.

This week, as we head to the 4th of July weekend, we are bringing you a special two-part episode that provides a capstone for our month-long collaboration with Random House about the books that have shaped American history. Over almost two hours, we took a 250-year-tour of the books that shaped this country’s history. Niki, Kellie and Jody were joined by Pulitzer-prize winning presidential historian Jon Meacham, who is also Niki’s fellow Vanderbilt professor. We tried to touch on a lot of books, and also group them into basic schools of thought that we could use to trace how the story of American history shifted over time. For a full list of the books discussed, check out our newsletter. Join our America250 newsletter community ! Subscribe for free to get the latest news and analysis of how America250 is playing out. Paying subscribers get access to early, ad-free versions of the show. Plus bonus features throughout the year. To support our work and get access to everything, subscribe now . This Day is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories. If you want to support the show directly, you can do…

People in this episode

Host: Jody Avirgan

Guest: Jon Meacham

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Organizations: Random House, Radiotopia, PRX

Books & works: This Day

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