front cover of The Cabinet
The Cabinet
George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution
Lindsay M. Chervinsky
Harvard University Press, 2020

Winner of the Daughters of the American Revolution’s Excellence in American History Book Award
Winner of the Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize


“Cogent, lucid, and concise…An indispensable guide to the creation of the cabinet…Groundbreaking…we can now have a much greater appreciation of this essential American institution, one of the major legacies of George Washington’s enlightened statecraft.”
—Ron Chernow

On November 26, 1791, George Washington convened his department secretaries—Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Henry Knox, and Edmund Randolph—for the first cabinet meeting. Why did he wait two and a half years into his presidency to call his cabinet? Because the US Constitution did not create or provide for such a body. Faced with diplomatic crises, domestic insurrection, and constitutional challenges—and finding congressional help distinctly lacking—he decided he needed a group of advisors he could turn to for guidance.

Authoritative and compulsively readable, The Cabinet reveals the far-reaching consequences of this decision. To Washington’s dismay, the tensions between Hamilton and Jefferson sharpened partisan divides, contributing to the development of the first party system. As he faced an increasingly recalcitrant Congress, he came to treat the cabinet as a private advisory body, greatly expanding the role of the executive branch and indelibly transforming the presidency.

“Important and illuminating…an original angle of vision on the foundations and development of something we all take for granted.”
—Jon Meacham

“Fantastic…A compelling story.”
—New Criterion

“Helps us understand pivotal moments in the 1790s and the creation of an independent, effective executive.”
Wall Street Journal

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Campaign
A Cartoon History of Bill Clinton's Race for the White House
Mary Ann Barton
University of Arkansas Press, 1993
This fascinating record chronicles Governor Bill Clinton’s 1992 bid for the presidency by gathering editorial cartoons from some of the nation’s premier magazines and newspapers. His meteoric rise from obscure origins as governor of a small southern state to his current position as the world’s most powerful head of state presents political cartoonists with a unique challenge.

For many people, in the United States and abroad, the dramas of the campaign created the character of Clinton. From the Gennifer Flowers debacle to Clinton’s
resurrection at the Democratic National Convention and the triumph of the election win, the incisive cartoons in this collection capture Clinton’s emerging image in a way that no written word can. The forty-five contributing artists use these cartoons to depict the breathtaking and colorful events that only a presidential campaign can produce and offer hours of entertainment for any reader.
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Changing Their Minds?
Donald Trump and Presidential Leadership
George C. Edwards III
University of Chicago Press, 2021
Despite popular perceptions, presidents rarely succeed in persuading either the public or members of Congress to change their minds and move from opposition to particular policies to support of them. As a result, the White House is not able to alter the political landscape and create opportunities for change. Instead, successful presidents recognize and skillfully exploit the opportunities already found in their political environments. If they fail to understand their strategic positions, they are likely to overreach and experience political disaster.
 
Donald Trump has been a distinctive president, and his arrival in the Oval Office brought new questions. Could someone with his decades of experience as a self-promoter connect with the public and win its support? Could a president who is an experienced negotiator obtain the support in Congress needed to pass his legislative programs? Would we need to adjust the theory of presidential leadership to accommodate a president with unique persuasive skills?
 
Building on decades of research and employing extensive new data, George C. Edwards III addresses these questions. He finds that President Trump has been no different than other presidents in being constrained by his environment. He moved neither the public nor Congress. Even for an experienced salesman and dealmaker, presidential power is still not the power to persuade. Equally important was the fact that, as Edwards shows, Trump was not able to exploit the opportunities he had. In fact, we learn here that the patterns of the president’s rhetoric and communications and his approach to dealing with Congress ultimately lessened his chances of success. President Trump, it turns out, was often his own agenda’s undoing.
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The Clinton Riddle
Perspectives on the Forty-second President
Todd G. Shields
University of Arkansas Press, 2004
In 2002 a distinguished interdisciplinary group of scholars gathered at the Diane D. Blair Center of Southern Politics and Society at the University of Arkansas to provide a critical evaluation of the Clinton-Gore administration. Their groundbreaking assessment of the most controversial president in modern times treats such crucial topics as race, women, and minorities; the character issue; foreign policy; and the media. This book provides a unique vantage point on the “Clinton riddle” that all future studies will need to consider.
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Coalition Politics and Cabinet Decision Making
A Comparative Analysis of Foreign Policy Choices
Juliet Kaarbo
University of Michigan Press, 2013

Every day, coalition cabinets make policy decisions critical to international politics. Juliet Kaarbo examines the dynamics of these multiparty cabinets in parliamentary democracies in order to assess both the quality of coalition decision making and the degree to which coalitions tend to favor peaceful or military solutions. Are coalition cabinets so riddled by conflict that they cannot make foreign policy effectively, or do the multiple voices represented in the cabinet create more legitimate and imaginative responses to the international system? Do political and institutional constraints inherent to coalition cabinets lead to nonaggressive policies? Or do institutional and political forces precipitate more belligerent behavior?

Employing theory from security studies and political psychology as well as a combination of quantitative cross-national analyses and twelve qualitative comparative case studies of foreign policy made by coalition cabinets in Japan, the Netherlands, and Turkey, Kaarbo identifies the factors that generate highly aggressive policies, inconsistency, and other policy outcomes. Her findings have implications not merely for foreign policy but for all types of decision making and policy-making by coalition governments.

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front cover of The Collision of Political and Legal Time
The Collision of Political and Legal Time
Foreign Affairs and the Supreme Court's Transformation of Executive Authority
Kimberley L. Fletcher
Temple University Press, 2018

How does the U.S. Supreme Court shape constitutional and political development? In The Collision of Political and Legal Time, Kimberley Fletcher answers this question by analyzing the key role the Court has played in interpreting presidential decision-making in the area of foreign affairs since 1936. She reconsiders the Curtiss-WrightCourt, which instituted a new constitutional order that established plenary powers independent of congressional delegation. Fletcher also reexamines Japanese internment and detainee cases, demonstrating the entrenchment of the new constitutional order and how presidential ascendency becomes institutionalized. Other cases, such as Youngstown, illustrate how the Court, during a time of war, will check Executive power and authority. 

The Collision of Political and Legal Time examines these cases and controversies in foreign policymaking through the twentieth and into the twenty-first centuries to show that the Court is not passive or constrained; it does not merely follow politics or the majority coalition. Through her nuanced analysis, Fletcher makes a larger argument about the role of the U.S. Supreme Court as an agent of change, which ultimately transforms power, shapes politics, and redirects history.

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Crime of the Century
The Kennedy Assassination from a Historian's Perspective
Michael L. Kurtz
University of Tennessee Press, 2013
Now a classic, Michael Kurtz’s Crime of the Century recounts the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, and provides a detailed critical analysis of the investigations of the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Kurtz outlines the major areas of controversy about the assassination and sifts all the known evidence before concluding that both official inquiries failed to evaluate the considerable evidence of an assassination conspiracy. Kurtz also examines each of the most prevalent conspiracy theories and shows how often they fail to fit the facts.

This third edition includes a new introduction, based on updated information about the assassination since the second edition was published in 1993, including material from the National Archives and several major recent interpretations of the events. Drawing on a variety of primary source materials from the National Archives and the FBI’s and CIA’s declassified assassination files, Crime of the Century remains a book of importance not only to students of the Kennedy assassination but also scholars of government response to political violence.

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Czars in the White House
The Rise of Policy Czars as Presidential Management Tools
Justin S. Vaughn and José D. Villalobos
University of Michigan Press, 2015
When Barack Obama entered the White House, he followed a long-standing precedent for the development and implementation of major policies by appointing administrators—so-called policy czars—charged with directing the response to the nation’s most pressing crises. Demonstrating that the creation of policy czars is a strategy for combating partisan polarization and navigating the federal government’s complexity, Vaughn and Villalobos offer a sober, empirical analysis of what precisely constitutes a czar and what role they have played in the modern presidency.
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