Politics Presidents Make

Stephen Skowronek is the Pelatiah Perit Professor of Political and Social Science at Yale University.

A magisterial work, one of the most important studies of the presidency--indeed, of American politics--ever written...[Skowronek] comes very close to identifying the root problem affecting presidents...This is the all-important fact that the Constitution is unchanging and nondeveloped, while at all times intersecting with a social, economic, and political world that has undergone incessant development from the beginning. The whole work may be read as an extended, powerful, and penetrating meditation on some of the global consequences of this fact.

• Preface, 1997 I. PLACES IN HISTORY 1. Rethinking Presidential History 2. Power and Authority 3. Structure and Action II. RECURRENT AND EMERGENT PATTERNS 4. Jeffersonian Leadership: Patrician Prototypes Part One: Thomas Jefferson's Reconstruction Part Two: James Monroe's Articulation Part Three: John Quincy Adams's Disjunction 5. Jacksonian Leadership: Classic Forms Part One: Andrew Jackson's Reconstruction Part Two: James Polk's Articulation Part Three: Franklin Pierce's Disjunction 6. Republican Leadership: Stiffening Crosscurrents Part One: Abraham Lincoln's Reconstruction Part Two: Theodore Roosevelt's Articulation Part Three: Herbert Hoover's Disjunction 7. Liberal Leadership: Fraying Boundaries Part One: Franklin Roosevelt's Reconstruction Part Two: Lyndon Johnson's Articulation Part Three: Jimmy Carter's Disjunction III. THE WANING OF POLITICAL TIME 8. Reagan, Bush, and Beyond Afterward Notes Index