Synopses & Reviews
Review
Leadership in the Modern Presidencyprovides rich fare for the ardent American tribe of president-watchers and policy diagnosticians. -- Richard E. Neustadt, Harvard University
Review
A lively collection. Leuchtenburg on FDR is the best thing going in short form. Muir on Reagan is sure to cause a controversy Greenstein is helpful and original as usual. And there's still more! Richard E. Neustadt, Harvard University
Review
This compilation represents an all-too-rare accomplishment. The individual essays are as scholastically rigorous as one would ever care to read, yet they rarely lose their clear-eyed readability...A vivid account of the evolution of the presidency into the modern, highly complex, highly influential office we know today. It is highly recommended to anyone interested in understanding how our country is led, and by whom. -- Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. - Political Science Quarterly
Synopsis
In presidential election years the leadership qualities of occupants of the Oval Office become yardsticks for aspiring candidates. What profile of qualities, both positive and negative, helps explain the performance of chief executives? In this book about the White House, nine eminent political scientists and historians present their assessments of the leadership styles and organizational talents of presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan. Filled with anecdote and insight, this is an unprecedented opportunity to observe how the running of the office of President has been changed, subtly and not so subtly, by the management and personal styles of the various incumbents within their historical contexts.
The book vividly depicts each president. There is Roosevelt, "a real artist in government"; Truman, a strong executive who always managed to appear weak; Eisenhower, who cultivated the image of being "above the fray" of politics but was actually fully occupied with getting political results; Kennedy, who successfully projected the symbolic grandeur of his office; Johnson, a figure from classical tragedy; Nixon, who preferred a corporate to a political mode of operation; Ford, who placed healing the nation's wounds from Vietnam and Watergate above his personal political future; Carter, whose fall was as stunning as his rise was meteoric. The chapter on Reagan is an impassioned encomium of the president as a folk philosopher that is bound to be controversial.
These accounts of leadership by modern presidents are acute studies of how the presidency has become the first among equals in our tripartite system of government. This book will be important to political scientists, historians, and government officials, and the liveliness of its presentation and the quotidian impact of the men it describes will make it attractive to everyone interested in how we are governed and who is doing the governing.
About the Author
Fred I. Greensteinis Professor of Politics, <>Princeton University. Among his several books is The Hidden Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Toward a Modern Presidency
Fred I. Greenstein 1. Franklin D. Roosevelt: The First Modern President
William E. Leuchtenburg
2. Harry S. Truman: Insecurity and Responsibility
Alonzo L. Hamby
3. Dwight D. Eisenhower: Leadership Theorist in the White House
Fred I. Greenstein
4. John F. Kennedy: The Endurance of Inspirational Leadership
Carl M. Brauer
5. Lyndon B. Johnson: Paths Chosen and Opportunities Lost
Larry Berman
6. Richard M. Nixon: The Corporate Presidency
Joan Hoff- Wilson
7. Gerald R. Ford: A Healing Presidency
Roger Porter
8. Jimmy Carter: The Politics of Public Goods
Erwin C. Hargrove
9. Ronald Reagan: The Primacy of Rhetoric
William K. Muir, Jr.
10. Nine Presidents in Search of a Modern Presidency
Fred I. Greenstein
Contributors
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index