PSCI 384 - American Presidency

This four-volume encyclopedia provides an expansive analysis of the life and times of each United States president in chronological order from George Washington to Donald Trump. Each chapter includes a timeline, a biographical sketch, a historical overview, and an analytical essay concerning the president and his presidency. Each also includes a substantial selection of related primary documents presenting important presidential speeches and correspondence. A suggested reading list for further study of each president rounds out each entry.

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This two-volume encyclopedia covers the major forces that have shaped American politics from the founding to today. Broad in scope, the book addresses both the traditional topics of political history--such as eras, institutions, political parties, presidents, and founding documents--and the wider subjects of current scholarship, including military, electoral, and economic events, as well as social movements, popular culture, religion, education, race, gender, and more.

This two-volume work portrays, election by election, the diverse ways in which presidential candidates have carried their messages and personalities to the electorate. Each essay is accompanied by full-colour illustrations of campaign artifacts: banners, posters, ribbons, buttons, songs, cartoons, and other relevant articles. This book is intended for anyone interested in American history, politics, the American presidency, and in the collectibles that are a part of every campaign.

This book chronologically analyzes thirteen key US Presidents, from Washington to Trump, to highlight how religion has informed or influenced their politics and policies. This volume reveals the deep religious side to such presidents as Truman, Eisenhower, and Reagan, among others, and the impact that faith had on their administrations.

Examining the lives and presidencies of 11 chief executives for whom religion was a particularly important issue because of their own beliefs, Smith paints portraits of the religious lives of the leaders and shows how their beliefs shaped their actions and in turn the course of our history. Discusses George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Dwight David Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush.

In Religion in the Oval Office, Smith takes on eleven of our nation's chief executives: John Adams, James Madison, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William McKinley, Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. Drawing on a wide range of sources and paying close attention to historical context and America's shifting social and moral values, he examines their religious beliefs, commitments, affiliations, and practices and scrutinizes their relationships with religious leaders and communities.

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Historian Randall Balmer takes us on a tour of presidential religiosity in the last half of the twentieth century--from Kennedy's 1960 speech that proposed an almost absolute wall between American political and religious life to the soft religiosity of Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society; from Richard Nixon's manipulation of religion to fit his own needs to Gerald Ford's quiet stoicism; from Jimmy Carter's introduction of evangelicalism into the mainstream to Ronald Reagan's co-option of the same group; from Bill Clinton's covert way of turning religion into a non-issue to George W. Bush's overt Christian messages, Balmer reveals the role religion has played in the personal and political lives of these American presidents.

This book challenges the idea that the mixing of religion and presidential politics is a new phenomenon. It explores how presidents have drawn on their religious upbringing, rhetoric, ideas, and beliefs to promote their domestic and foreign policies to the nation. This influence is evident in Washington's decision to add "so help me God" to the presidential oath, accusations by Adam's supporters that Jefferson was an infidel, Lincoln's biblical metaphors during the Civil War, and FDR's call to fight against Nazi totalitarianism on behalf of Judeo-Christian civilization. It is also apparent in Truman's support for Israel, Eisenhower's Cold War decision to add "In God We Trust" on American currency, the debate over JFK's Catholicism, Jimmy Carter's born-again Christianity, Reagan's "Evil Empire" speech, Clinton's public repentance, and George W. Bush's "crusade" against Islamic terrorists. This volume explores these issues of religion and power in the presidencies of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln, FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, JFK, Carter, Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush through scholarly interpretations, primary sources, and illustrations.

In Michael Nelson's Sixth Edition of The Evolving Presidency, 60 documents help to anchor the ever-changing presidency in historical context. Students encounter a range of documents--from speeches and debates to letters, landmark Supreme Court decisions, and even tweets--that demonstrate how the presidency is shaped through both word and deed. Every selection has its own headnote that is carefully crafted to convey the significance of the document during its own time and its lasting effects on the office of the presidency.

Available in print and electronically.

Each entry includes the full text of the document in question as well as an in-depth, analytical essay that places the document in its historical context. Includes presidential documents.

The White House Tapes: Eavesdropping on the President is a portrait of eight recent American presidents--including Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Reagan--as they respond to some of the most critical events of the late twentieth century. Edited by historian John Prados, the book contains transcripts of the heat-of-the-moment Oval Office phone conversations and confidential meetings (often with participants who did not know they were being recorded) that changed the course of history. A comprehensive introductory essay on the history of presidential recordings and detailed introductions to the transcripts themselves put these key moments in American history in context.