With the Bark Off: Conversations on the American Presidency

"Washington was very aware of his shortcomings" A Conversation About the Cabinet with Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky

Episode Summary

Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky joins Mark Lawrence to talk about her book The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution.

Episode Notes

When we think of how our presidents make decisions, we often imagine them sitting around conference tables with their cabinet secretaries, engaging in detailed deliberation and weighing competing points of view. But where did this practice come from? When did the cabinet originate, and why does it function as it does?

Lindsay Chervinsky, a scholar of 18th century America and the U.S. presidency, is among the first historians to delve deeply into these questions. A senior fellow at the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University, Lindsay has published in the Wall Street Journal, Ms. Magazine, CNN, The Washington Post, and USA Today. She joins Dr. Mark Lawrence to talk about her writing on the early American presidency.