What can past presidential history teach us about today?

The law is not Dallas attorney Talmage Boston’s only love. “I have had a lifelong fascination with the presidency since I was 7 years old, and in recent years have become increasingly fascinated with it, given that so many of our top historians and non-fiction writers are devoting themselves to writing presidential biographies or studying the presidencies of different leaders over the years,” Boston says.

Boston made it his mission to conduct interviews with many of these well-known historians in front of live audiences, focusing the interviews on 20 historically significant presidencies. The edited transcripts of those interviews are compiled in his new book, “Cross-Examining History: A Lawyer Gets Answers from the Experts About Our Presidents.”

In honor of the 2016 election, Boston joins the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles for this episode of The Modern Law Library.  He talks about this labor of love, the importance of considering historical context when judging a president’s actions, and what past history may tell us about the future of the Trump administration.

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