I’ve read Lindsay’s new book Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents that Forged the Republic. It’s outstanding.
I’m so looking forward to joining Lindsay Chervinsky on Zoom Wednesday evening, one day after the Presidential Debate, to share her with her fanbase and my online community. I’ve read her new book Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents that Forged the Republic. It’s outstanding.
Among other things, Lindsay has emerged as a major “Presidential Historian,” where she joins such luminaries as Jon Meacham, Douglas Brinkley, Michael Beschloss, and H.W. Brands. About time there is a woman in the mix, and a representative of a new generation of historians!
Join us. We’ll meet at 7 p.m. to about 8:30 p.m. Central time Wednesday. I’ll ask Lindsay a few warmup questions, then turn it over to all of you to ask whatever questions you wish.
Lindsay has been a central figure first in The Thomas Jefferson Hour and more recently in Listening to America. This is her second full-on book. The first, which I is how I happened on her work, was The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution (2020).
Our Ten Things series (Ten Things about Aaron Burr, Ten Things about Transfer of Power) has been highly popular.
Her new book, Making the Presidency, is a little hard on poor Mr. Jefferson, but I don’t actually disagree with her criticisms. All I can say is that if you can only keep one Founding Father, it has to be Jefferson. If you can only keep two, it is Jefferson and George Washington. If you can only keep three, it is TJ, GW, and James Madison. And though it kills me to say it, if you can only keep four it is GW, TJ, JM, and Alexander Hamilton. John Adams is in the mix somewhere and he is having a little historical renaissance owing to historians Joseph Ellis, David McCullough, and now Lindsay Chervinsky, but he can never eclipse Jefferson, who is the Muse of the American Dream of liberty, self-government, and the pursuit of happiness, in spite of the terrible blot of his ownership of hundreds of enslaved people.
What an honor for you (and me) to have Zoom time with Ms. Chervinsky.