San Antonio College Library

In The Power of the American Presidency, Michael A. Genovese, one of the best known and respected scholars on the presidency, takes readers on a journey through the personalities and politics of some of the most fascinating and at times powerful men in American history. Organized chronologically, the text offers an overview of the evolution and elasticity of presidential power by providing case studies of each president's personal characteristics...

Examines why the role of the President is more celebrated than those of the Congress or the courts, discussing the rise of presidential power and the decline of congressional power. The Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial. Why do we devote monuments to the presidents? Why do we honor them, instead of Congress or the courts? A Presidential Nation examines how the presidency--an office limited by the Constitution and separation...

"Executive orders and proclamations afford presidents an independent means of controlling a wide range of activities in the federal government - yet they are not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. In fact, the controversial edicts known as universal presidential directives seem to violate the separation of powers by enabling the commander-in-chief to bypass Congress and enact his own policy preferences. As Clinton White House counsel Paul Begala...

This video, narrated by veteran CBS News correspondent Lesley Stahl, examines the long and complex relationship between the presidency and public opinion. Leading historians, political scientists, and public figures offer insight into presidents and the presidency from George Washington through FDR.

Former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman here confronts one of the momentous issues of American history and the American present--the contending prerogatives of the president and Congress in making war. Lehman, a lively controversialist and scholar, examines the history of American military decision making from the Revolutionary period to the Gulf War. Whose power is it to declare war, to carry it out, and to sustain its course and bring it to an...

Rough Rider, hunter, trust-buster, president, and Bull Moose candidate. Biographers have long fastened on Teddy Roosevelt as man of action, while largely ignoring his political thought. Now, in time for the centennial of his Progressive run for the presidency, the author provides a searching examination of TR's political thought, especially in relation to the ideas of Washington, Hamilton, and Lincoln, the statesmen TR claimed most to admire. The...