The Presidents and the Structure: A Dwelling Historical past

Shines new gentle on America’s good constitutional and presidential historical past, from George Washington to Barack Obama.

On this sweepingly bold quantity, the nation’s foremost specialists on the American presidency and the U.S. Structure be part of collectively to inform the intertwined tales of how every American president has confronted and formed the Structure. Every occupant of the workplace―the primary president to the forty-fourth―has contributed to the story of the Structure via the selections he made and the actions he took because the nation’s chief govt.

By analyzing presidential historical past via the lens of constitutional conflicts and challenges, The Presidents and the Structure gives a contemporary perspective on how the Structure has developed within the arms of particular person presidents. It delves into key moments in American historical past, from Washington’s early battles with Congress to the arrival of the nationwide safety presidency underneath George W. Bush and Barack Obama, to disclose the dramatic historic forces that drove these presidents to motion. Historians and authorized specialists, together with Richard Ellis, Gary Hart, Stanley Kutler and Kenneth Starr, convey the Structure to life, and present how the superior powers of the American presidency have been shapes by the boys who had been granted them. The guide brings to the fore the overarching constitutional themes that span this nation’s historical past and ties collectively presidencies in a approach by no means earlier than completed.