Reviews
A work of great insight...This is a book that kicks aside all the conventional ways of thinking about presidential leadership and erects a daring, powerful, analytic machine that compels attention., Skowronek...brings illuminating insights to each president that he discusses...A major theoretical contribution to the study of the presidency., Indeed, Skowronek's work has been recognized as a major contribution to our understanding of the office...Skowronek provides a mass of detailed evidence to support his thesis, but he is also sensitive to the fact that no one theoretical perspective can account for the complexity and nuance of presidential leadership...Above all, his work retains a deep respect for the Neustadtian tradition with its emphasis on the leadership capacities of individual incumbents, while placing presidential performance through time in a analytically persuasive theoretical context., This is a remarkable book...A skilled practitioner of the use of historical evidence systematically to understand not only the evolution, but also the current nature, of American political institutions, [Skowronek] examines the whole crowded history of the presidency to catalog and organize the two hundred year experience in a fresh and striking fashion., In this pathbreaking work, Stephen Skowronek escapes from 'secular time' to view presidents in what he calls 'political time,' meaning incumbents' relationships to their predecessors and to the status quo...This rich, insightful, resonant volume merits reading and rereading. It is destined to be a classic of presidential scholarship., 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., The book brings together current ideas of political scientists on the theory of presidential leadership, as well as incorporating the major historical works on the various presidents. It is history from the top rather than from the bottom, and while current historical trends are in the opposite direction, this sophisticated, scholarly analysis of presidential leadership illustrates that the history of political leadership is a subject on which innovative, imaginative approaches can still produce important new perspectives., In evaluating the field of political authority, Skowronek skillfully and systematically makes use of historical evidence. His approach can only be applauded as it brings a new and broader understanding of the historical evolution of the presidency.
