- 236 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
Perspectives on Presidential Leadership
About This Book
In 2011 Barack Obama invited ten distinguished biographers to the White House to ask them one question: which past American president should I emulate? This was not the first time Obama asked scholars this, but the answer he received would differ as presidential legacies waxed and waned. In 2008 Obama chose Lincoln; in 2009, Reagan; and in 2010, Theodore Roosevelt.
Perspectives on Presidential Leadership is an examination of presidential legacy, and in particular an analysis of the first ever UK ranking of American presidents which took place in 2011. In thirteen chapters, thirteen individual presidential administrations are assessed. Some presidents have been considered a success, others a failure; both types are featured in these thirteen case studies in a measured attempt to understand how the perception of presidential leadership evolves, shifts, and contorts across three centuries of American politics. The case studies also derive from the expertise of the collected British, Irish and Canadian authors, all of whom are leading scholars in their fields, and many of which took part in the 2011 survey.
At a time when understanding presidential legacy is in high demand, this book offers a unique international perspective. Through extended commentary and inter-disciplinary study of the UK perspective it provides groundbreaking research.
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Table of contents
- Cover
- Half Title
- Title
- Copyright
- Contents
- Contributor Biographies
- Preface
- Introduction: Rating America's Presidents: A UK Perspective
- 1 The Meanings of Going First: George Washington and the Presidency
- 2 John Quincy Adams: An Exceptionally Average President?
- 3 A Poetic Presidency: Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, and the Second American Revolution
- 4 Andrew Johnson: The Wrong Man in the Wrong Place
- 5 A (Near) Great President: Theodore Roosevelt as the First Modern President
- 6 Reevaluating the Presidency of Warren G. Harding
- 7 Simply the Best: FDR as America's Number One President
- 8 King's Last President: A Canadian Prime Minister's Perspective on Harry S. Truman's First Term
- 9 LBJ: If Not for Vietnam
- 10 The Reagan Presidency in Retrospect: An Assessment of Reagan's Legacy
- 11 George H. W. Bush and Presidential Peacemaking in Ranking American Presidents
- 12 President Bill Clinton: Ranking, Reputation, and Legacy
- 13 An Obama Doctrine?
- Index
- Acknowledgements