The American President; From Teddy Roosevelt to Bill Clinton

New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2015. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Good/Good. xiv, [2], 886, [2] pages. Includes Preface, Prologue, Epilogue, Acknowledgments, Selected Bibliography, and Index. Also includes several black and white photographs of Presidents. The DJ has a few small chips and creases. Minor printing flaw at top of some index pages--no impact on information. William Edward Leuchtenburg (born 1922) is the William Rand Kenan Jr. professor emeritus of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a leading scholar of the life and career of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1951. He won the 2007 North Carolina Award for Literature. He is a past president of the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, and the Society of American Historians. Eric Foner is the only other historian to claim that distinction. The author offers a nuanced assessment of each chief executive's conduct in office, preoccupations, and temperament. This book charts the enormous growth of presidential power from its lowly state in the late nineteenth century to the imperial presidency of the twentieth. That striking change was manifested both at home, in periods of progressive reform, and abroad, notably in two World Wars, Vietnam, and the war on terror. Derived from a Kirkus review: An acclaimed historian examines the American presidency from 1901 to 2001. Even though he was uninspiring, William McKinley, assassinated in 1901, was the "creator of the 20th-century presidency," writes Leuchtenburg, who chronicles the entire presidential gallery across the 20th century. So what made McKinley so modern? Not only was he the first to ride in an automobile, appear in motion pictures, and use the telephone, but he set up a table for reporters to brief them daily and pursued a more imperial executive style in deploying American troops on his own authority. This greatly increased power of the presidency was new, as the country at that point was expanding hugely in terms of industry and population. With the accession of Theodore Roosevelt, the office became the famous "bully pulpit" of a muscular, progressive leader, not afraid to take on big business-e.g., J.P. Morgan's Northern Securities Company, trustbusted by the Supreme Court in 1904. Woodrow Wilson was both revered for his idealism and vilified for the scarring of the World War I years. After the "Wilsonian usurpation," writes Leuchtenburg, Congress was "in no mood to indulge a strong executive." The country was content with Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover yet welcomed the activism during the Great Depression of Franklin Roosevelt, a transformative president when he had to become commander in chief of the armed forces. What the author conveys so marvelously is the sense of how such seemingly ordinary Americans-e.g., Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon; Gerald Ford; Jimmy Carter-could bring majesty to the office. A top-notch historian brings together erudite research with felicitous prose. An excellent work of 20th-century American history.