In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Lindsay Chervinsky about death and mourning of U.S. Presidents. They discuss how the book came about and how certain essays were chosen for the volume. They talk about the themes of race, political party, and family. They discuss the ideas of legacy, and how U.S. presidential funerals compare with other global heads of state. They talk about Washington and his private funeral, Jefferson and his descendants, Taylor and his mixed legacy, and the global impact of Lincoln. They also discuss Theodore Roosevelt through a current lens, generational impact of FDR and JFK, the long goodbye of Reagan, the bipartisan mourning of H.W. Bush, and many other topics.

Lindsay M. Chervinsky is a historian, author, and speaker. She obtained her PhD in history from the University of California, Davis and is a fellow at the Kluge Center at the Library of Congress and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University. She has also been a professor at the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University. She is the author of The Cabinet: George Washington and The Creation of An American Institution and co-editor (with Matthew R. Costello) of Mourning The Presidents: Loss and Legacy in American Culture. You can find her work at her website and on her substack, Imperfect Union. Twitter: @lmchervinsky

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