The American President: From Teddy Roosevelt to Bill Clinton by William E. Leuchtenburg (review)

There are many people and institutions that can impact society. Private actors, such as protesters, researchers, and businesspeople, can push and pull society. Institutions, such as Congress, the courts, and universities, can bring both progress and regression. Since the beginning of the twentieth century no entity has arguably been as influential as the American presidency. The modern presidency has often been at the center of important moments in American history. Its importance has been seen in both domestic affairs and international relations. In this new addition to the literature on twentieth-century American political history, the preeminent historian William E. Leuchtenburg underscores the importance of the American presidency in the life of the United States.

In the 1960s, historians began focusing on other aspects of history. Social and cultural history—from the bottom up—replaced much of the focus academic historians had given to great white men and politics. Over the next several decades studies in gender, race, social movements, civil rights, and world history reflected a growing shift in focus and in employment opportunities. As political scientists became obsessed with quantitative research and increasingly jettisoned political theory, political history went out of vogue. But over the course of the last twenty years political history has begun a comeback. And the growing political instability over the last ten years, both in the United States and globally, has brought attention back to the importance of politics, especially the role of the American president. Leuchtenburg has performed a valuable service to the historical profession with this volume.

The author began this work after attending a meeting at the University of Pennsylvania in 2004. After a colleague approached him about writing a history of the American presidency, Leuchtenburg agreed and devised a two-volume study. Currently he is working on the second volume, which will cover the Constitutional Convention through the end of the nineteenth century. The main undercurrent of this work is the author's contention that American presidents shaped the twentieth century. Leuchtenburg examines every president from Theodore Roosevelt to Bill Clinton in detail. The book is designed to appeal to a broad audience. In doing so, the author presents a highly readable and informative history of the twentieth century.

Leuchtenburg proceeds in a chronological fashion, beginning with the assassination of President William McKinley in September 1901. The death ushered in a new president whose political prowess defined the presidency for a generation: Theodore Roosevelt. The author notes that Republican Party power broker Mark Hanna thought it was a "mistake" nominating Roosevelt to be vice president because of his reputation for political troublemaking (p. 23). When Roosevelt became president, the nation was entering not only a new century but also a new era in which American power would be increasingly on display. Consequently, the office of the president would have to modernize, too.

By noting the developing importance of the chief executive, Leuchtenburg underscores the fact that as industrialization and modernity transformed the United States, the nation's highest leader would have to be transformed as well. Every subsequent president built a myth around himself and sought to push a national agenda. The only exceptions were the Republican presidents of the 1920s—Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover. The author explains how Woodrow Wilson expanded on the developments in the changing nation. He held a Ph.D. and had been a professor, president of Princeton University, and governor of New Jersey. Wilson brought a certain idealism attractive to Progressives. Yet President Wilson's achievements, such as the Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission, the Nineteenth Amendment, and others, failed to inspire confidence as World War I and the restraints brought on by the war and domestic tensions drove a great many Americans into the Republican camp by 1920.

Leuchtenburg notes correctly the vast importance of Franklin D. Roosevelt to Americans' shifting dependence...