Recapturing the Oval Office: New Historical Approaches to the American Presidency(Miller Center of Public Affairs Books)

Several generations of historians figuratively abandoned the Oval Office as the bastion of out-of-fashion stories of great men. And now, decades later, the historical analysis of the American presidency remains on the outskirts of historical scholarship, even as policy and political history have rebounded within the academy. In Recapturing the Oval Office, leading historians and social scientists forge an agenda for returning the study of the presidency to the mainstream practice of history and they chart how the study of the presidency can be integrated into historical narratives that combine rich analyses of political, social, and cultural history. The authors demonstrate how "bringing the presidency back in" can deepen understanding of crucial questions regarding race relations, religion, and political economy. The contributors illuminate the conditions that have both empowered and limited past presidents, and thus show how social, cultural, and political contexts matter. By making the history of the presidency a serious part of the scholarly agenda in the future, historians have the opportunity to influence debates about the proper role of the president today. Contributors: Brian Balogh, University of Virginia; Michael A. Bernstein, Tulane University; Kathryn Cramer Brownell, Purdue University; N. D. B. Connolly, The Johns Hopkins University; Frank Costigliola, University of Connecticut; Gareth Davies, University of Oxford; Darren Dochuk, Washington University; Susan J. Douglas, University of Michigan; Daniel J. Galvin, Northwestern University; William I. Hitchcock, University of Virginia; Cathie Jo Martin, Boston University; Alice O'Connor, University of California, Santa Barbara; Bruce J. Schulman, Boston University; Robert O. Self, Brown University; Stephen Skowronek, Yale University

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Confessions of a Presidential Assassin by Brian Balogh Part I. Balancing Agency and Structure 1. The Unsettled State of Presidential History by Stephen Skowronek 2. Personal Dynamics and Presidential Transitions: The Case of Roosevelt and Truman by Frank Costigliola 3. Narrator-in-Chief: Presidents and the Politics of Economic Crisis from FDR to Obama by Alice O'Connor Part II. The Social and Cultural Landscape Presidents Confront 4. The Reagan Devolution: Movement Conservatives and the Right's Days of Rage, 1988-1994 by Robert O. Self 5. There Will Be Oil: Presidents, Wildcat Religion, and the Culture Wars of Pipeline Politics by Darren Dochuk 6. Ike's World: Ideology and Power in Eisenhower's National Strategy by William I. Hitchcock 7. Black Appointees, Political Legitimacy, and the American Presidency by N. D. B. Connolly 8. Presidents and the Media by Susan J. Douglas 9. The Making of the Celebrity Presidency by Kathryn Cramer Brownell Part III. The Presidency and Political Structure 10. Stand by Me: Coalitions and Presidential Power from a Cross-National Perspective by Cathie Jo Martin 11. Taking the Long View: Presidents in a System Stacked against Them by Daniel J. Galvin 12. American Presidential Authority and Economic Expertise since World War II by Michael A. Bernstein 13. The Changing Presidential Politics of Disaster: From Coolidge to Nixon by Gareth Davies Conclusion: The Perils and Prospects of Presidential History by Bruce J. Schulman Notes List of Contributors Index

About the Author :
Brian Balogh is the Compton Professor at the Miller Center and the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia. He is the author of A Government Out of Sight: The Mystery of National Authority in Nineteenth-Century America and editor of Integrating the Sixties: The Origins, Structure and Legacy of a Turbulent Decade. Bruce J. Schulman is the William E. Huntington Professor of History at Boston University. He is the author of From Cotton Belt to Sunbelt: Federal Policy, Economic Development, and the Transformation of the South, 1938-1980; Lyndon B. Johnson and American Liberalism: A Brief Biography with Documents; and The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics.

Review :
"A much-needed and altogether excellent effort at addressing a major question in U.S. historical scholarship: where did the presidency go? A stellar cast of contributors take to the task with vigor and skill, and succeed ably in bridging the gap between presidential agency and the structural forces that have long been the primary concern of professional historians."-Fredrik Logevall, Harvard University, author of Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam "Recapturing the Oval Office is a delightful book of high literary merit that will have an important impact on the historical profession. I envy the subtlety and forthrightness with which it demolishes shibboleths and sets forth a new agenda for the next generation."-Elizabeth Cobbs, Hoover Institution and San Diego State University, author of American Umpire