Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Imperial Presidency by Arthur M., Jr Schlesinger ISBN: 0-7351-0047-0 Publisher: Replica Books Pub. Date: December, 1998 Format: Hardcover List Price(USD): $38.45 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (4 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Once again important
Comment: Although this book focuses on Richard Nixon's abuse of Presidential power, it can apply to the present day as well. Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush have all extended the power of the Presidency in ways the framers of the Constitution would never have dreamed of. I agree with the reviewer who commented about the favoritism towards Kennedy and Roosevelt hence the four stars rather than five. A great read for anyone interested in the American Constitution as it relates to the powers of the President.
Rating: 4
Summary: Schlesinger's most revolutionary book to date!
Comment: Not Schlesinger's best work, however the Imperial Presidency may be his most revolutionary book to date. The book tended to be quite redundant and repetitive. He also placed the best two chapters first, which in turn may not have been the best move. Although this book has its downsides (mentioned above) the chapters on Nixon and Secrecy are well worth the read. I would recommend this book to anyone who would like to learn about the powers of the presidency and Congress and the feud between the two, which has so evidently become a part of our daily lives.
Rating: 5
Summary: Brilliant and important.
Comment: Whatever his shortcomings (see below), historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. has a great mind and writes with a silver pen. I am immensely impressed with his book on the growth of presidential power in America and cannot imagine a better introduction to my future studies on this important subject.
The book's organization is superb. Appropriately, it first discusses the Founding Fathers' likely intentions in regard to the Presidency and where they disagreed amongst themselves. Next it explains the Presidency and its war power, tracing its development through the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, and paying special attention to the Second World War, the Korean War and Vietnam. Most of a 64-page chapter is devoted to President Richard M. Nixon's radical ideas and practices. Democracy and foreign policy is then treated, followed by the Presidency and its powers of secrecy, and finally, the Presidency and its future. As these subjects are dealt with, many facts are thrown at the reader, the totality being hard to absorb. Fortunately, nothing is explained in isolation. The author constantly backtracks, providing new historical context and rehashing material already covered. This practice, plus good organization and a high degree of literary skill (Dr. Schlesinger can *write*), make this book highly readable.
Of particular interest is Dr. Schlesinger's discussion of philosopher John Locke's idea of presidential prerogative, of which I was previously unaware (and which I am still mulling over). This is the view that extraordinary national emergencies create temporary exceptions to normal constitutional restrictions on a president's power to act. This prerogative is supposed to come into play during clear threats to the republic that require immediate action and that are recognized by Congress and the people as legitimate emergencies; a president is also supposed to submit himself to the judgment of Congress (e.g., for possible impeachment) after exercising this prerogative, and not pretend that he had been acting within the Constitution (which might set a dangerous precedent). This idea is important because of its influence on the Founding Fathers, who were steeped in Locke, and because of its consequences. Correctly or not, President Abraham Lincoln invoked it during the Civil War, as did President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during World War II. President Richard M. Nixon also made use of it... with far less justification.
Dr. Schlesinger's treatment of President Nixon, the size of whose index entry dwarfs that of any other topic in the book, is also fascinating. Dr. Schlesinger clearly is appalled by the man and devotes many pages to his schenanigans and his almost monarchical views of Presidential power. He demonstrates just how significant a departure was the Presidency under Nixon from the Presidency as conceived by the Founding Fathers. In a statement that is very true, Dr. Schlesinger calls Nixon's Presidency "a culmination, not an aberration, and potentially the best thing to have happened to the Presidency in a long time" (paraphrasing from memory, since I lost the page). It is unfortunate that Congress did not make the most of Watergate and put the Presidency into its proper place (e.g., see its shameful War Powers Act or the Presidency of Bill Clinton). This, Congress's own role in the expansion of Presidential power (its unwise, Cold War-inspired delegation of foreign policy discretion to the Presidency, its evasion of responsibility, its cowardice, etc.), is also given just and ample treatment.
I am concerned about Dr. Schlesinger's possible biases. He discloses, for example, that he was an aide in President John F. Kennedy's administration, and indeed his view of Kennedy's Presidency is relatively rosey. He is also kind to President Roosevelt and must admire him, else he would not be a leading member of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute. And as David S. Wyman contends in his definitive history of America's response to the Holocaust, *The Abandonment of the Jews*, Dr. Schlesinger has long maintained (though it does not come up in this volume) that Roosevelt did all he could to save European Jews from the Nazis during World War II--in utter contradiction of the facts.
My main criticism of *The Imperial Presidency* is theoretical. I am a strict constructionist, Dr. Schlesinger believes in a looser, evolutionary interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. He says as much in his first chapter. Quoting President Woodrow Wilson--that despot of democracy whose own collectivist impulses and subversion of the Constitution forced our American boys into the bloody trenches of a European war--he objects to the Constitution's being treated as "a mere legal document, to be read as a will or contract," and advocates that its meaning be determined "by the exigencies and the new aspects of life itself." I will state here simply that under this view of the Constitution, the document's meaning becomes anything anybody at any time wishes it to be--in which case it loses all utility, we might as well have no Constitution and kiss our individual rights goodbye to unscrupulous men and prevailing philosophies that might not, in fact, be in our best interest. We have the power of Amendment for a reason. I dare not speculate how Dr. Schlesinger's beliefs might have affected his scholarship. I will note with irony, however, that the constitutional views he expouses have greatly contributed to the "imperial presidency" he so decries. Was Nixon the chief culprit in Watergate--or was he the culmination of intellectuals like Dr. Schlesinger?
Despite these criticisms, there is more good in *The Imperial Presidency* than bad. I will repeatedly refer back to it whenever I have questions about what powers our presidents have and how they got them. I might buy a more recent edition. Mine was published shortly after Watergate, the constitutional crisis that occasioned the book's writing, but according to Amazon.com's description of it, it is supposed to cover the Presidency through Ronald Reagan. My curiosity is piqued.
 |
Title: The Ferocious Engine of Democracy: A History of the American Presidency: From the Origins Through William McKinley by Michael P. Riccards, James MacGregor Burns ISBN: 1568331029 Publisher: Madison Books Pub. Date: September, 1997 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
 |
Title: PRESIDENTIAL POWER AND THE MODERN PRESIDENTS : THE POLITICS OF LEADERSHIP FROM ROOSEVELT TO REAGAN by Richard E. Neustadt ISBN: 0029227968 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1991 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
 |
Title: Shadow : Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate by Bob Woodward ISBN: 0684852632 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 06 June, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
 |
Title: The Personal President: Power Invested, Promised Unfulfilled by Theodore J. Lowi ISBN: 0801494265 Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr Pub. Date: September, 1986 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
 |
Title: The Cycles of American History by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. ISBN: 0395957931 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 01 June, 1999 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
