Author, commentator, and presidential historian Alexis Coe joins Mark Lawrence in conversation about George Washington, the subject of her 2020 biography You Never Forget Your First. In today’s episode, she discusses her unconventional take on the first U.S. president, her perspective on the myth of the man versus reality, and Washington’s stance on slavery.
Coe’s first book, Alice + Freda Forever: A Murder in Memphis, appeared in 2014. More recently, she published the book that we’ll be discussing today, You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington, which appeared on the New York Times bestseller list. Coe has contributed to The New Yorker, The New York Times, and TheNew Republic. She has also hosted the podcast No Man’s Land and Presidents are People Too! and worked as consulting producer for the forthcoming History Channel program on Washington.