Jon Meacham's six favorite books

Jon Meacham is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of American Lion, a biography of Andrew Jackson, and the 2012 best-seller Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power.

One of his six favorite books, as shared with The Week magazine:

Parting the Waters by Taylor Branch

This first volume of Branch's three-part history of Martin Luther King Jr.'s impact opens unconventionally, with a portrait of Vernon Johns, King's forgotten predecessor. By the time the book closes, in the wake of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombings in Birmingham, Ala., and the assassination of President Kennedy, we've gotten as close to King and the people around him as readers possibly can.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Parting the Waters is on Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's list of five important books about prejudice, the Christian Science Monitor's list of ten of the best books about Martin Luther King, Jr and Gal Beckerman's list of six favorite books about political movements, and appears on the Barnes & Noble Review's list of five books on the civil rights movement.

--Marshal Zeringue