Schlesinger: The Imperial Historian
Schlesinger: The Imperial Historian

Author: Richard Aldous

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2017-10-10

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 0393244717

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The first major biography of preeminent historian and intellectual Arthur Schlesinger Jr., a defining figure in Kennedy’s White House. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. (1917–2007), known today as the architect of John F. Kennedy’s presidential legacy, blazed an extraordinary path from Harvard University to wartime London to the West Wing. The son of a pioneering historian—and a two-time Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner in his own right—Schlesinger redefined the art of presidential biography. A Thousand Days, his best-selling and immensely influential record of the Kennedy administration, cemented Schlesinger’s place as one of the nation’s greatest political image makers and a key figure of the American intellectual elite—a peer and contemporary of Reinhold Niebuhr, Isaiah Berlin, and Adlai Stevenson. The first major biography of this defining figure in Kennedy’s Camelot, Schlesinger: The Imperial Historian presents a dramatic life and career set against the backdrop of the American Century. Biographer Richard Aldous draws on oral history, rarely seen archival documents, and the official Schlesinger papers to craft a portrait of the incandescently brilliant and controversial historian who framed America’s ascent to global empire.

War and the American Presidency
War and the American Presidency

Author: Arthur Meier Schlesinger

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2005-10-17

Total Pages: 205

ISBN-13: 0393346358

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"Historical reflections that deftly challenge the political and ideological foundations of President Bush's foreign policy."--Charles A. Kupchan, New York Times In a book that brings a magisterial command of history to the most urgent of contemporary questions, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., explores the war in Iraq, the presidency, and the future of democracy. Describing unilateralism as "the oldest doctrine in American history," Schlesinger nevertheless warns of the dangers posed by the fatal turn in U.S. policy from deterrence and containment to preventive war. He writes powerfully about George W. Bush's expansion of presidential power, reminding us nevertheless of our country's distinguished legacy of patriotism through dissent in wartime. And in a new chapter written especially for the paperback edition, he examines the historical role of religion in American politics as a background for an assessment of Bush's faith-based presidency.

A World Trimmed with Fur
A World Trimmed with Fur

Author: Jonathan Schlesinger

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2017-01-11

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1503600688

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In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, booming demand for natural resources transformed China and its frontiers. Historians of China have described this process in stark terms: pristine borderlands became breadbaskets. Yet Manchu and Mongolian archives reveal a different story. Well before homesteaders arrived, wild objects from the far north became part of elite fashion, and unprecedented consumption had exhausted the region's most precious resources. In A World Trimmed with Fur, Jonathan Schlesinger uses these diverse archives to reveal how Qing rule witnessed not the destruction of unspoiled environments, but their invention. Qing frontiers were never pristine in the nineteenth century—pearlers had stripped riverbeds of mussels, mushroom pickers had uprooted the steppe, and fur-bearing animals had disappeared from the forest. In response, the court turned to "purification;" it registered and arrested poachers, reformed territorial rule, and redefined the boundary between the pristine and the corrupted. Schlesinger's resulting analysis provides a framework for rethinking the global invention of nature.

Journals, 1952-2000
Journals, 1952-2000

Author: Arthur Meier Schlesinger (Jr.)

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 920

ISBN-13: 9781594201424

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The distinguished political historian's journals provide an intimate history of post-war America, the writer's contributions to multiple presidential administrations, and his relationships with numerous cultural and intellectual figures.

The Myth of the Imperial Presidency
The Myth of the Imperial Presidency

Author: Dino P. Christenson

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2020-07-13

Total Pages: 295

ISBN-13: 022670436X

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Throughout American history, presidents have shown a startling power to act independently of Congress and the courts. On their own initiative, presidents have taken the country to war, abolished slavery, shielded undocumented immigrants from deportation, declared a national emergency at the border, and more, leading many to decry the rise of an imperial presidency. But given the steep barriers that usually prevent Congress and the courts from formally checking unilateral power, what stops presidents from going it alone even more aggressively? The answer, Dino P. Christenson and Douglas L. Kriner argue, lies in the power of public opinion. With robust empirical data and compelling case studies, the authors reveal the extent to which domestic public opinion limits executive might. Presidents are emboldened to pursue their own agendas when they enjoy strong public support, and constrained when they don’t, since unilateral action risks inciting political pushback, jeopardizing future initiatives, and further eroding their political capital. Although few Americans instinctively recoil against unilateralism, Congress and the courts can sway the public’s view via their criticism of unilateral policies. Thus, other branches can still check the executive branch through political means. As long as presidents are concerned with public opinion, Christenson and Kriner contend that fears of an imperial presidency are overblown.

Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy, and the Feud that Defined a Decade
Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy, and the Feud that Defined a Decade

Author: Jeff Shesol

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 1998-10-17

Total Pages: 630

ISBN-13: 0393345971

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"Mutual Contempt is at once a fascinating study in character and an illuminating meditation on the role character can play in shaping history."—Michiko Kakutani, New York Times Lyndon Johnson and Robert Kennedy loathed each other. Their antagonism, propelled by clashing personalities, contrasting views, and a deep, abiding animosity, would drive them to a bitterness so deep that even civil conversation was often impossible. Played out against the backdrop of the turbulent 1960s, theirs was a monumental political battle that would shape federal policy, fracture the Democratic party, and have a lasting effect on the politics of our times. Drawing on previously unexamined recordings and documents, as well as memoirs, biographies, and scores of personal interviews, Jeff Shesol weaves the threads of this epic story into a compelling narrative that reflects the impact of LBJ and RFK's tumultuous relationship on politics, civil rights, the war on poverty, and the war in Vietnam. As Publishers Weekly noted, "This is indispensable reading for both experts on the period and newcomers to the history of that decade." "An exhaustive and fascinating history. . . . Shesol's grasp of the era's history is sure, his tale often entertaining, and his research awesome."—Russell Baker, New York Review of Books "Thorough, provocative. . . . The story assumes the dimensions of a great drama played out on a stage too vast to comprehend."—Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post (1997 Critic's Choice) "This is the most gripping political book of recent years."—Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

Robert Kennedy and His Times
Robert Kennedy and His Times

Author: Arthur Meier Schlesinger (Jr.)

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published: 1978

Total Pages: 1092

ISBN-13: 9780618219285

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A biography of the Senator who was assassinated in 1968, stressing the public and personal forces and events that shaped his life.

Presidential Power
Presidential Power

Author: Matthew A. Crenson

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 9780393064889

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This book explores how American presidents--especially those of the past three decades--have increased the power of the presidency at the expense of democracy.

The Crisis of the Old Order, 1919-1933
The Crisis of the Old Order, 1919-1933

Author: Arthur Meier Schlesinger

Publisher:

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 580

ISBN-13:

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The Crisis of the Old Order, 1919-1933, volume one of Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and biographer Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. s Age of Roosevelt series, is the first of three books that interpret the political, economic, social, and intellectual history of the early twentieth century in terms of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the spokesman and symbol of the period. Portraying the United States from the Great War to the Great Depression, The Crisis of the Old Order covers the Jazz Age and the rise and fall of the cult of business. For a season, prosperity seemed permanent, but the illusion came to an end when Wall Street crashed in October 1929. Public trust in the wisdom of business leadership crashed too. With a dramatist s eye for vivid detail and a scholar s respect for accuracy, Schlesinger brings to life the era that gave rise to FDR and his New Deal and changed the public face of the United States forever."