#108: Keri Leigh Merritt - "After Life" Artwork

Axelbank Reports History and Today

"Axelbank Reports History and Today: Conversations with America’s top non-fiction authors and why their books matter right now" approaches our past and present in a way that makes anyone want to listen. National-award winning TV news reporter Evan Axelbank interviews writers of history and current events to explore how America works and how it has been shaped by both the powerful and the powerless. In conversational and engaging fashion, listeners learn about the most important events, themes and figures in American history. This podcast shows why we have no choice but to understand where we have been, to know where we are going.

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Axelbank Reports History and Today

#108: Keri Leigh Merritt - "After Life"

December 20, 2022 • Evan Axelbank

In this episode, historian Keri Leigh Merritt explores how a pandemic exacerbated simmering inequalities in American society to produce mass death at an unprecedented scale. The book she co-edited with Rhae Lynn Barnes and Yohuru Williams, "After Life: A Collective History of Loss and Redemption in Pandemic America," is a collection of essays where authors explore the damage that grief and fear had on our collective psyche. We discussed the impact that politics, race and class had on who died and on who was left behind.

Keri Leigh's website can be found at https://kerileighmerritt.com/

More information about "After Life" can be found at https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1927-after-life

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