BiblioVault - Books about Historical Analysis

Bourdieu and Historical Analysis

Philip S. Gorski, ed.

Duke University Press, 2012

The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu had a broader theoretical agenda than is generally acknowledged. Introducing this innovative collection of essays, Philip S. Gorski argues that Bourdieu's reputation as a theorist of social reproduction is the misleading result of his work's initial reception among Anglophone readers, who focused primarily on his mid-career thought. A broader view of his entire body of work reveals Bourdieu as a theorist of social transformation as well. Gorski maintains that Bourdieu was initially engaged with the question of social transformation and that the question of historical change not only never disappeared from his view, but re-emerged with great force at the end of his career.

The contributors to Bourdieu and Historical Analysis explore this expanded understanding of Bourdieu's thought and its potential contributions to analyses of large-scale social change and historical crisis. Their essays offer a primer on his concepts and methods and relate them to alternative approaches, including rational choice, Lacanian psychoanalysis, pragmatism, Latour's actor-network theory, and the "new" sociology of ideas. Several contributors examine Bourdieu's work on literature and sports. Others extend his thinking in new directions, applying it to nationalism and social policy. Taken together, the essays initiate an important conversation about Bourdieu's approach to sociohistorical change.

Contributors. Craig Calhoun, Charles Camic, Christophe Charle, Jacques Defrance, Mustafa Emirbayer, Ivan Ermakoff, Gil Eyal, Chad Alan Goldberg, Philip S. Gorski, Robert A. Nye, Erik Schneiderhan, Gisele Shapiro, George Steinmetz, David Swartz

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Broker, Mediator, Patron, and Kinsman

An Historical Analysis of Key Leadership Roles in a Rural Malaysian District

Conner Bailey

Ohio University Press, 1976

This study attempts to relate questions of rural leadership to the constantly changing social and economic environment of a rural district in Malaysia during the twentieth century. The study itself began as an effort to analyze a single instance of structural change in Malay village leadership which occurred while the author worked in Sik District as a Peace Corps Volunteer (1968–1971). A research proposal was developed positing a traditional pattern of behavior which could be identified as traditional leadership, the better to contrast this with the bureaucratic style of the district’s new penghulus (headmen of a mukim, or subdistrict).

As research progressed, it became obvious that there was in fact no single traditional leadership pattern to be discovered, but rather that over time adaptations were regularly made whenever a significant change in Sik’s social and economic environment occurred. Although the study has retained rural leadership as a primary concern, it has been found necessary to relate it to Sik’s social and economic history.

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The Federal Appointments Process

A Constitutional and Historical Analysis

Michael J. Gerhardt

Duke University Press, 2003

Although the federal appointment of U.S. judges and executive branch officers has consistently engendered controversy, previous studies of the process have been limited to particular dramatic conflicts and have tended to view appointments in a vacuum without regard to other incidents in the process, other legislative matters, or broader social, political, and historical developments. The Federal Appointments Process fills this gap by providing the first comprehensive analysis of over two hundred years of federal appointments in the United States, revealing crucial patterns of growth and change in one of the most central of our democratic processes.
Michael J. Gerhardt includes each U.S. president’s performance record regarding appointments, accounts of virtually all the major confirmation contests, as well as discussion of significant legal and constitutional questions raised throughout U.S. history. He also analyzes recess appointments, the Vacancies Act, the function of nominees in the appointment process, and the different treatment received by judicial and nonjudicial nominations. While discussing the important roles played by media and technology in federal appointments, Gerhardt not only puts particular controversies in perspective but also identifies important trends in the process, such as how leaders of different institutions attempt to protect—if not expand—their respective prerogatives by exercising their authority over federal appointments. Employing a newly emerging method of inquiry known as “historical institutionalism”—in which the ultimate goal is to examine the development of an institution in its entirety and not particular personalities or periods, this book concludes with suggestions for reforms in light of recent controversies springing from the longest delays in history that many judicial nominees face in the Senate.
Gerhardt’s intensive treatment of the subject will be of interest to students and scholars of political science, government, history, and legal studies.

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The Federal Impeachment Process

A Constitutional and Historical Analysis

Michael J. Gerhardt

University of Chicago Press, 2000

Throughout President Clinton's impeachment proceedings, the contending sides agreed on very little. One exception was The Federal Impeachment Process—the most complete analysis of the constitutional and legal issues raised in every impeachment proceeding in American history.

In this edition, Michael Gerhardt draws on his experience as a commentator and expert witness to examine the likely political and constitutional consequences of President Clinton's impeachment and trial. Placing the President's acquittal in historical perspective, he argues that it fits easily within the impeachment process as it has evolved over the past two centuries. Impeachment, he shows, is an inherently political process designed to expose and remedy political crimes. Subject neither to judicial review nor to presidential veto, it is a unique congressional power that involves both political and constitutional considerations, including the gravity of the offense charged, the harm to the constitutional order, and the link between an official's misconduct and duties.

Significantly updated, this book will be the standard work on the federal impeachment process for years to come.

On the first edition:

"The most comprehensive, analytic study of the federal impeachment process to date."—Choice

"This book is by some margin the most successful . . . analysis of impeachment issues to have been written, and it will be the standard work for years to come."—Constitutional Commentary

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The Federal Impeachment Process

A Constitutional and Historical Analysis, Third Edition

Michael J. Gerhardt

University of Chicago Press, 2019

As President Trump and Congressional Democrats battle over the findings of the Mueller report, talk of impeachment is in the air. But what are the grounds for impeaching a sitting president? Who is subject to impeachment? Is impeachment effective as a safeguard against presidential misconduct? What challenges does today’s highly partisan political climate pose to the impeachment process, and what, if any, meaningful alternatives are there for handling presidential misconduct?

For more than twenty years, The Federal Impeachment Process has served as the most complete analysis of the constitutional and legal issues raised in every impeachment proceeding in American history. Impeachment, Michael J. Gerhardt shows, is an inherently political process designed to expose and remedy political crimes—serious breaches of duty or injuries to the Republic. Subject neither to judicial review nor to presidential veto, it is a unique congressional power that involves both political and constitutional considerations, including the gravity of the offense charged, the harm to the constitutional order, and the link between an official’s misconduct and duties. For this third edition, Gerhardt updates the book to cover cases since President Clinton, as well as recent scholarly debates. He discusses the issues arising from the possible impeachment of Donald Trump, including whether a sitting president may be investigated, prosecuted, and convicted for criminal misconduct or whether impeachment and conviction in Congress is the only way to sanction a sitting president; what the “Emoluments Clause” means and whether it might provide the basis for the removal of the president; whether gross incompetence may serve as the basis for impeachment; and the extent to which federal conflicts of interest laws apply to the president and other high ranking officials.

Significantly updated, this book will remain the standard work on the federal impeachment process for years to come.

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Scientific Management and the Unions, 1900-1932

A Historical Analysis

Milton Joseph Nadworny

Harvard University Press

The Tidelands Oil Controversy

A Legal and Historical Analysis

By Ernest R. Bartley

University of Texas Press, 1953

This study is not written from the narrow perspective of “Who gets the oil?” It is a thoughtful probing of an issue—the ownership and control of the submerged soils of the marginal sea—the outcome of which may go far to determine the division of powers between states and nation under the American federal system.

American constitutional law, international law, theory of federalism, American politics, the machinations of pressure groups, use of propaganda techniques, and issues of social and economic policy—all these features of American government and many more are inherent in the controversy.

In 1947, in a precedent-making decision, the Supreme Court enunciated the principle that the federal government, not the states, has “paramount rights in and power over” the marginal seas which border the coastal states, and has “full dominion over the resources under that water area, including oil.”

For more than 150 years the littoral states had exercised uncontested jurisdiction and ownership over the marginal-sea area, subject only to the powers specifically granted to the national government by the Constitution. The states had regulated the fisheries within the three-mile limit, applying state laws to vessels licensed under federal statutes. Long before oil possibilities were thought of, they had granted or leased areas in the marginal seas to private persons and corporations for purposes of land reclamation and harbor development, dredging for sand and gravel, development of oyster beds, and similar projects. These property rights can far exceed in value the wealth to be derived from petroleum.

A just settlement of the issue, says the author, calls for restoration to the states of control of the marginal sea out to their historical boundaries—three miles in most cases; three leagues, or ten and one-half miles, in the case of Texas and the west coast of Florida.

This study is based upon thorough investigation of all literature on the subject and personal interviews and correspondence with leaders on both sides of the controversy.

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