Current Series Catalogue

I Do Solemnly Swear:
Presidential Elections and
The U.S. Presidency

What makes a President? Is it the man or the package? The office, the people, or the media? In 227 years, a variety of men have made it to this high office and all of them offered something different to the country. This series looks at the presidency, the modern two-party system, and elections so far removed from George Washington’s time.

Lewis L. Gould, The Modern American Presidency
If there is a common theme in his survey of presidents from McKinley to George W. Bush, it may be that the demands of the office have become too broad for anyone to be truly successful. This is a concise, intelligent survey of the transformations of the White House over the past century.

Joe McGinniss, The Selling of the President, 1968
This 1969 classic showed television’s power in packaging a politician into a product like a bar of soap. In the 30-plus years since its publication, the book still resonates with what remains the most formidable challenge for a candidate: image control.

Jeff Greenfield, The People’s Choice
A deft satiric spin to a cautionary tale about the electing of the US president.

Michael Lewis, LOSERS: The Road to Everyplace but the White House
Lewis spent time with both major and minor candidates for the 1996 Republican nomination, beginning at the start, the New Hampshire primary. With insightful, disturbing, and often funny observations, he examines the nuances of how campaigns are carefully managed.

James Ceasar and Andrew Busch, The Perfect Tie: The True Story of the 2000 Presidential Election
The story of one of the nation’s most unusual and perhaps most bizarre elections. In 2000, for the first time, the electorate was evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats; but a full third of the electorate, the “floating voters,” were undecided. The trick for Gore or for Bush would have been to maintain their party bases, which both did, while capturing a good percentage of the floating voters, which both failed to do. Hence, the closeness of the election, the (almost) perfect tie.

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