🎧 The First President
Latest Podcast Episodes 🎧 • 21m
George. Where did it all go wrong? George Washington could have had a comfortable career as a loyal member of HIs Majesty's Virginia militia and colonial grandee. But no, he had to go and roll the dice. I am thrilled in this episode to be talking to historian Alexis Coe about her new biography of Washington. She has a fresh take on the first President, but no less scholarly for that. Young George Washington was raised by a struggling single mother, demanded military promotions, caused an international incident, and never backed down - even when his dysentery got so bad he had to ride with a cushion on his saddle. But after he married Martha, everything changed. Washington became the kind of man who named his dog Sweetlips and hated to leave home. He took up arms against the British only when there was no other way, though he lost more battles than he won.
Up Next in Latest Podcast Episodes 🎧
-
🎧 The First Thanksgiving
Sarah Churchwell and Kathryn Gray joined me on the podcast to discuss the first Thanksgiving of 1621. They critique mythologies of Thanksgiving that have arisen from 19th century ideologues, to Reagan, to the present day, and reframe settler colonial narratives.
-
🎧 The Witches of Warboys: A Novel Ret...
The Cambridgeshire village of Warboys was the scene of one of the most famous English witch trials of the sixteenth century. There, the privileged daughters of the respected Squire Throckmorton accused a cantankerous elderly neighbour of witchcraft, sending the impoverished Alice Samuel to her de...
-
🎧 The Forgotten Ally: Canada
Tim Cook joined me on the pod to discuss how Canadian contributions are frequently overlooked or diminished in discussions of the War. Most major war histories are written by British or American authors, who give little credit to the Canadians as a separate fighting force.
