Now in a new fifth edition, The American Presidency: Origins and Development, 1776-2007—winner of the Benjamin Franklin Award for History, Politics, and Philosophy—examines both the constitutional precepts of the presidency and the social, economic, political, and international conditions that continue to shape it. Authors Sidney Milkis and Michael Nelson analyze the origins of the modern presidency and discuss the patterns of presidential conduct that developed during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and continue into the twenty-first. With careful consideration of every presidential administration, attention is focused more on how individual presidents shaped the institution, and less on the idiosyncrasies of their personalities.

Unlike other texts on the presidency that divide executive politics into discrete topical chapters, The American Presidency integrates all aspects of the presidency into a dynamic whole and examines the variation of presidential relationships and roles from administration to administration. Students gain both an understanding of the office as it really exists and a solid historical foundation from which to better appreciate its evolution.

Thoroughly updated, the fifth edition provides complete coverage of the George W. Bush administration, up to and including the 2004 and 2006 elections. The authors meticulously take into account new research on the presidency, while continuing to refine the writing and analysis of what has become a classic in the field.

Preface

1. The Constitutional Convention

2. Creating the Presidency

3. Implementing the Constitutional Presidency: George Washington and John Adams

4. The Triumph of Jeffersonianism

5. The Age of Jackson

6. The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln

7. The Reaction against Presidential Power: Andrew Johnson to William McKinley

8. Progressive Politics and Executive Power: The Presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft

9. Woodrow Wilson and the Defense of Popular Leadership

10. The Triumph of Conservative Republicanism

11. The Consolidation of the Modern Presidency: Franklin D. Roosevelt to Dwight D. Eisenhower

12. Personalizing the Presidency: John F. Kennedy to Jimmy Carter

13. A Restoration of Presidential Power? Ronald Reagan and George Bush

14. Bill Clinton and the Modern Presidency

15. George W. Bush and Beyond

16. The Vice Presidency

Appendix

Index

“Students find The American Presidency to be one of the best textbooks they’ve ever been assigned. I’m a longtime fan of both Sydney Milkis and Michael Nelson, and they continue to produce top-notch, accessible scholarship here. Its key strengths include a pitch-perfect balance between breadth and depth that is so hard for most textbooks to achieve, emphasis on key moments of partisan and electoral development, and the inclusion of both personal and institutional factors that contribute to the presidency’s evolution.”

“The American Presidency is a rare gem in the field. It not only serves as a comprehensive guide to the presidency, but also provides insightful analysis that illuminates key elements of its development. I find it an invaluable book in my course on American political development.”

Sidney M. Milkis is the James Hart Professor of Politics and senior scholar at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. His books include The President and the Parties (1993), The Politics of Regulatory Change, 2d edition (1996), Political Parties and Constitutional Government (1999), Presidential Greatness (2000), and The New Deal and the Triumph of Liberalism (2002). His articles have appeared in Political Science Quarterly, Studies in American Political Development, The Journal of Policy History, and several edited volumes.

Michael Nelson is professor of political science at Rhodes College. More than forty of his articles have been anthologized in works of political science, history, and English composition, and he has won national writing awards for his articles on music and baseball. His most recent books are The Presidency and the Political System (now in its eighth edition), and Debating the Presidency: Conflicting Perspectives on the American Executive (edited with Richard J. Ellis).