In Jon Meacham’s “American Lion,” the Chattanooga-raised author waxes philosophical on the best application of rhetoric, noting that when effectively used, it “inspires and instructs.”
The insight is just one of many contained within the 10 works recently approved by the Tennessee legislature as the list of official state books, awaiting a signature from Gov. Bill Lee. Critics say nine of the books are simply there to clear the way to make the Bible a state book, since a 2016 effort to make the Bible a stand-alone state book was vetoed by then-Gov. Bill Haslam amid constitutional and other concerns.
The new list, in addition to the Bible, includes three novels, one work of history, one speech, one biography, one text of political philosophy, one collection of presidential papers and one children’s book.
The texts, together numbering more than 14,000 pages, have connections of varying strength to Tennessee, including Meacham’s book on Andrew Jackson, the seventh U.S. president who instigated the Trail of Tears and died in Nashville in 1845.