Sharon McMahon
speaker
324 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard 25 Feb
Sharon McMahon’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Feb 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Chernow's great. He's a very serious historian. He doesn't write popular history. And there's a difference.
Academic history has a different audience than popular history. So if you think about the book Hidden Figures, that is a popular history book. It is meant for a broad general audience. It's meant for somebody to be able to pick up and read with their middle school or make a movie about. That's sort of the genre that David Grant and Timothy Egan work in. I do love academic history, though.
And that's kind of where the Ron Chernow's and the David McCullough's and people in that genre, the John Meacham's, they write in a different style and for a different audience. And it's really important work, but it's a little less accessible for the average person. You have to really be into it to pick up a book this thick about the life of one dude. Yeah. You gotta be real into it.
Do you like reading books about people that you can sort of emulate or idolize?
I'll tell you one thing about George Washington. Maybe you didn't know this. Maybe you did.
George Washington, this is something that fascinates me about him, is that when he was appointed to be sort of the head of the army in the war against the British, he had never commanded a large army before. He'd worked in the Virginia militia, but he didn't have any like big general nationwide experience, not even at like a lower level where you often sort of work your way up.
And so on his way to fight in the Revolutionary War, He had to stop by a bookstore and buy a book on how to be a general. And I was like, hmm, there's a lot to unpack there. George Washington had to buy a how-to book on how to be a general. There was such a thing back then? Yes. I mean, it wasn't like how to be a general for dummies, black and yellow.
But if you think about it, he would have had to go into a small shop where all of the goods are kept behind the counter. He would have had to ask for a specific book on how to become a general. And I think it's a great lesson for today in that how many of us feel like I'm not ready to get started because I don't know how to do that thing yet. Yeah.
That's right. I'll wait till I finish the degree or have worked at that company for five years. When in fact, history smiles the most kindly on people who just went for it. People who just tried stuff, who just did something no one else had done. Sometimes they fail at it. George Washington had failures. In fact, he was almost fired from being the head of the Revolutionary Army in
History does not smile kindly on the timid or the critics.
Yes.
I like that.
He loved fancy outfits. Yes.
Velvet. Yes. He loved fancy wine, like Madeira wine. Is he me? I could have been the first president. Oh, yeah. That part's not me. He had expensive taste. Unlike Abraham Lincoln, who's like, I grew up in a little log cabin and I had nothing and my clothes are too small. You know, like he has this vibe. I taught myself how to read. Oh, my God. Dad says that all the time.
Marfins syndrome.
No, you don't have Marfins. I don't think you do.
Yeah, but you're not like excessively tall.
No, see, I wouldn't. I'm six feet tall. That's true.
That's early, early, early, early. Oh, Shannon, that's really... It's real rough, you guys. Even in Minnesota, where people are above average,
It's so rough. But of course, George Washington was famously tall, too.
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