Synopses & Reviews
In such popular television series as
The West Wing and
24, in thrillers like Tom Clancy’s novels, and in recent films, plays, graphic novels, and internet cartoons, America has been led by an amazing variety of chief executives. Some of these are real presidents who have been fictionally reimagined. Others are “might-have-beens” like Philip Roth’s President Charles Lindbergh. Many more have never existed except in some storyteller’s mind.
In The Presidents We Imagine, Jeff Smith examines the presidency’s ever-changing place in the American imagination. Ranging across different media and analyzing works of many kinds, some familiar and some never before studied, he explores the evolution of presidential fictions, their central themes, the impact on them of new and emerging media, and their largely unexamined role in the nation’s real politics.
Smith traces fictions of the presidency from the plays and polemics of the eighteenth century—when the new office was born in what Alexander Hamilton called “the regions of fiction”—to the digital products of the twenty-first century, with their seemingly limitless user-defined ways of imagining the world’s most important political figure. Students of American culture and politics, as well as readers interested in political fiction and film, will find here a colorful, indispensable guide to the many surprising ways Americans have been “representing” presidents even as those presidents have represented them.
“Especially timely in an era when media image-mongering increasingly shapes presidential politics.”—Paul S. Boyer, series editor
“Smith's understanding of the sociopolitical realities of US history is impressive; likewise his interpretations of works of literature and popular culture. . . .In addition to presenting thoughtful analysis, the book is also fun. Readers will enjoy encounters with, for example, The Beggar's Opera, Duck Soup, Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward, Philip Roth's Plot against America, the comedic campaigns of W. C. Fields for President and Pogo for President, and presidential fictions that continue up to the last President Bush. . . . His writing is fluid and conversational, but every page reveals deep understanding and focus. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.”—CHOICE
Review
“Especially timely in an era when media image-mongering increasingly shapes presidential politics.”—Paul S. Boyer, series editor
Review
“A generation before A. Philip Randolph, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., and Ella Baker, there was George Edwin Taylor. Rich in detail, this compelling story sheds light on black labor struggles in the Upper Midwest and brings to life an American civil rights hero and pioneer of independent black politics at the turn of the twentieth century.”—Omar H. Ali, author of In the Balance of Power: Independent Black Politics and Third Party Movements in the United States
Review
“This is an extraordinarily interesting, beautifully written book, with scores of fascinating insights into the ways that high culture and, increasingly, mass culture, have depicted American presidents.”—James B. Gilbert, author of Explorations of American Culture
Review
“A fresh angle on a popular topic.”—Publishers Weekly
Review
“A dense, terrific book . . . . Smith draws upon dozens, even hundreds, of largely forgotten satires, fantasies, pulp novels, B-movies, and online film reviews to relate the contested image of the presidency both to the immediate political conditions and to shifts in genre.”—Gregory P. Downs, American Quarterly
Review
'
“The best piece of historical detective work I have seen since John Hope Franklin’s work on George Washington Williams. At every turn it brings new findings and insights about the political experiences of African Americans. Superb and pioneering work.”—Hanes Walton Jr., author of American Politics and the African American Quest for Universal Freedom'
Review
“Life imitates art in his rollicking, always informative and often fascinating, account of over two hundred years of such story-telling.” —John McGowan, American Literary History
Review
“Smith's understanding of the sociopolitical realities of US history is impressive; likewise his interpretations of works of literature and popular culture. . . .In addition to presenting thoughtful analysis, the book is also fun. Readers will enjoy encounters with, for example, The Beggar's Opera, Duck Soup, Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward, Philip Roth's Plot against America, the comedic campaigns of W. C. Fields for President and Pogo for President, and presidential fictions that continue up to the last President Bush. . . . His writing is fluid and conversational, but every page reveals deep understanding and focus. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.” —Choice
Review
andldquo;Christiansenandrsquo;s examination of the making of popular history in postwar America adds greatly to contemporary debates over how Americans do and do not use their history in public. It harkens back to a time before cable television and the Internet, when andlsquo;mass mediaandrsquo; was more of a common experience. In particular, his investigation of how Du Pont and BBDO used audience research to shape the public history they presented on their radio and television programs is a real eye-opener that readers wonandrsquo;t forget.andrdquo;andmdash;David Glassberg, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Review
andldquo;Postwar America was a surprisingly creative time for making U.S. history come alive and for disseminating the andlsquo;lessonsandrsquo; of that history to broad and diverse American publics. Erik Christiansen explains why this was so and, through meticulous research, reconstructs the rise and fall of five key public history initiatives. A probing, illuminating, and elegantly written work.andrdquo;andmdash;Gary Gerstle, Vanderbilt University
Review
"Chris Edelson has successfully tackled a big and controversial topic with skill and grace. His balanced, fair-minded work is a welcome addition to a literature on presidential power in times of crisis that is often captured by partisans with a cause."—Michael Genovese, author of Presidential Prerogative
Review
“Edelson . . . lays down a foundation from which the current debate about the powers of the presidency can be more clearly understood.”—
Kirkus ReviewsReview
andldquo;This is an insightful analysis of the uses and misuses of history in an age of high anxiety and political polarization. Itandrsquo;s a timely and intellectually nuanced work that will appeal to both scholars and serious general readers with an interest in Cold War intellectualism.andrdquo;andmdash;
Library JournalReview
andldquo;Christiansen has written an informative, well-researched, useful book that casts considerable light on how mid-century Americans encountered history outside the classroom.andrdquo;andmdash;
HNN: History News NetworkReview
andldquo;This very accessible, fast-moving read examines revisionist movements from the Great Depression through the early stages of the Cold War.andrdquo;andmdash;
ChoiceReview
andldquo;
Channeling the Past may focus mainly on corporations rewriting history to influence public opinion, but it also delves into attempts by various groups on the political left to bolster their message by invoking the past.andrdquo;andmdash;
Minnesota History MagazineSynopsis
More than one hundred years before Barack Obama, George Edwin Taylor made presidential history. Born in the antebellum South to a slave and a freed woman, Taylor became the first African American ticketed as a political party’s nominee for president of the United States, running against Theodore Roosevelt in 1904.
Orphaned as a child at the peak of the Civil War, Taylor spent several years homeless before boarding a Mississippi riverboat that dropped him in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Taken in by an African American farm family, Taylor attended a private school and eventually rose to prominence as the owner/editor of a labor newspaper and as a vocal leader in Wisconsin’s People’s Party. At a time when many African Americans felt allegiance to the Republican Party for its support of abolition, Taylor’s sympathy with the labor cause drew him first to the national Democratic Party and then to an African American party, the newly formed National Liberty Party, which in 1904 named him its presidential candidate. Bruce L. Mouser follows Taylor’s life and career in Arkansas, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Florida, giving life to a figure representing a generation of African American idealists whose initial post-slavery belief in political and social equality in America gave way to the despair of the Jim Crow decades that followed.
Synopsis
In The Presidents We Imagine, Jeff Smith examines the presidency’s ever-changing place in the American imagination. Ranging across different media and analyzing works of many kinds, some familiar and some never before studied, he explores the evolution of presidential fictions, their central themes, the impact on them of new and emerging media, and their largely unexamined role in the nation’s real politics.
Synopsis
After the turmoil of the Great Depression and World War II, Americans looked to the nationandrsquo;s more distant past for lessons to inform its uncertain future. By applying recent and emerging techniques in mass communicationandmdash;including radio and television programs and commercial book clubsandmdash;American elites working in media, commerce, and government used history to confer authority on their respective messages.
and#160;and#160; and#160;With insight and wit, Erik Christiansen uncovers in Channeling the Past the ways that powerful corporations rewrote history to strengthen the postwar corporate state, while progressives, communists, and other leftists vied to make their own versions of the past more popular. Christiansen looks closely at several notable initiativesandmdash;CBSandrsquo;s flashback You Are There program; the Smithsonian Museum of American History, constructed in the late 1950s; the Cavalcade of America program sponsored by the Du Pont Company; the History Book Club; and the Freedom Train, a museum on rails that traveled the country from 1947 to 1949 exhibiting historic documents and flags, including original copies of the U.S. Constitution and the Magna Carta.
and#160;and#160; and#160;It is often said that history is written by the victors, but Christiansen offers a more nuanced perspective: history is constantly remade to suit the objectives of those with the resources to do it. He provides dramatic evidence of sophisticated calculations that influenced both public opinion and historical memory, and shows that Americansandrsquo; relationships with the past changed as a result.
Synopsis
Can a U.S. president decide to hold suspected terrorists indefinitely without charges or secretly monitor telephone conversations and e-mails without a warrant in the interest of national security? Was the George W. Bush administration justified in authorizing waterboarding? Was President Obama justified in ordering the killing, without trial or hearing, of a U.S. citizen suspected of terrorist activity? Defining the scope and limits of emergency presidential power might seem easy—just turn to Article II of the Constitution. But as Chris Edelson shows, the reality is complicated. In times of crisis, presidents have frequently staked out claims to broad national security power. Ultimately it is up to the Congress, the courts, and the people to decide whether presidents are acting appropriately or have gone too far. Drawing on excerpts from the U.S. Constitution, Supreme Court opinions, Department of Justice memos, and other primary documents, Edelson weighs the various arguments that presidents have used to justify the expansive use of executive power in times of crisis. Emergency Presidential Power uses the historical record to evaluate and analyze presidential actions before and after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The choices of the twenty-first century, Edelson concludes, have pushed the boundaries of emergency presidential power in ways that may provide dangerous precedents for current and future commanders-in-chief.
About the Author
Jeff Smith is assistant professor at the Center for Management Communication in the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California. He has been a political reporter, commentator, and television news consultant, a Visiting Fellow at Oxford University’s Rothermere American Institute, and the recipient of two Fulbright Fellowships for the study and teaching of American culture.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments Introduction 1 The Constitution and Emergency Presidential Power 2 Presidential Power in the Young Republic: Washington's Neutrality Proclamation, a "Half-War" with France, and the Alien and Sedition Acts 3 Lincoln and the Wartime Constitution 4 Setting Limits on Wartime Power? The
Ex Parte Milligan Decision 5 Expanded Presidential Power during World War II: Nazi Saboteurs and Military Commissions 6 The Internment of Japanese Americans during World War II 7 The
Youngstown Steel Seizure Case: The Court Sets Limits on Presidential Power8 Nixon, Watergate, and a Bid for Unbridled Presidential Power 9 Emergency Presidential Power at Its Zenith: The Bush Administration and the Unitary Executive 10 Detaining and Trying Suspected Terrorists 11 Torture in the War on Terror 12 Warrantless Wiretapping: Presidential Power to Set Aside Acts of Congress? 13 Detention and Military Commissions under the Obama Administration 14 The State Secrets Privilege: Emergency Presidential Power by Another Name? 15 The Obama Administration and Military Action in Libya Notes Index