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Rhetoric & Public Affairs 4.4 (2001) 770-771



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Book Review

The Power of the American Presidency, 1789-2000


The Power of the American Presidency, 1789-2000. By Michael A. Genovese. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001; pp. xiii + 273. $49.95 cloth; $19.95 paper.

This book is designed for use in undergraduate courses. It is motivated by and seeks to address a central problem facing many teachers of political science: students' lack historical knowledge and perspective. Since history is often integral to understanding the presidency, this ignorance is particularly frustrating and problematic for those teaching about the presidency. This book will not fully relieve those frustrations (and what single book could?), and it does not seek to provide a comprehensive history of the presidency or presidential politics. The book is quite useful, however, in providing a brief survey of an important aspect of presidential history, the "ebb and flow of presidential power" (xi).

A central theme of Genovese's survey is that the presidency is elastic, adaptable, and variable. The office is capable of both stretching and shrinking, and it has done both several times over the course of American history. It is adaptable in the sense of being able to adjust relatively quickly to new circumstances, and it is variable in that the powers of the presidency can vary "dramatically from incumbent to incumbent, issue to issue, season to season" (xii). Genovese links these shifts in presidential power to variation in the individual holding the office, the broader institution of the presidency, the relationship between the presidency and the broader political system (especially the constitutional separation of powers), and "the times" (in particular, periods of crisis).

After a helpful introductory chapter considering the constitutional background of the American presidency and a long table providing a "synopsis of presidential [End Page 770] administrations," the book proceeds in chronological order through each of the presidents from George Washington through Bill Clinton, broken into seven chapters of similar length. Slightly more space is given to the 20th-century presidents than to the 19th-century presidents, but a central claim of Genovese's book is that although the history of the presidency can be broken up into distinct periods (such as the common division between the traditional and the modern presidency) there is still an important commonality between the presidency of today and the presidency of the late 18th century. After a brief conclusion, Genovese includes several useful appendices providing some basic data on the presidents, presidential elections, political control of Congress, first ladies, vice presidents, and some founding-era documents on the presidency, including relevant constitutional text. The book is generously sprinkled with presidential portraits and a few illustrative tables.

The coverage of individual presidents varies from a few short paragraphs on such relatively forgettable presidents as Chester Arthur and Millard Fillmore to several pages on such relatively important presidents (for presidential power) as Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Richard Nixon. These summaries of individual administrations follow a set pattern. They open with a brief physical and political description of the presidents and the circumstances in which they took office. They briefly highlight the president's views of the office and significant political conflicts and accomplishments, and conclude with some general statement about the status of the presidency at the close of the administration. Analysis is subsumed in the description. Sometimes the personality of the individual president is particularly noted; sometimes the political context is rendered in greater detail.

These are thumbnail histories of the presidents, which may make them particularly useful for supplementary reading in an undergraduate course. The writing is fast-paced, colorful, and engaging. These histories are often too sketchy, however. Genovese often offers assertive conclusions rather than arguments or detailed explanations. The power and powers of the presidency often do not emerge as clearly as one might like, and the various sources of presidential power and their locations within the constitutional and political system are not strongly identified. The choppy presentation does not lend itself to conveying the development of the presidency over time. Thematic coherence and...

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