San Antonio College Library

"Americans currently choose their president through the electoral college, an extraordinarily complex mechanism that may elect the candidate who does not receive the most votes. In this book, George Edwards III argues that - contrary to what supporters of the electoral college claim - there is no real justification for a system that might violate majority rule." "Edwards finds that the electoral college does not protect the interests of small states...

"Alan Schroeder sheds new light on every debate from 1960 to the present. From the selection of questioners to the camera angles, from issues of makeup to lighting and stage set, Schroeder shows how decisions are made that influence every aspect of what the audience perceives. The Presidential Debates: Forty Years of High-Risk TV takes readers on a backstage tour, approaching the debates within the framework of the fundamental steps to which TV producers...

"In this book, Gary Scott Smith takes a look at the role religion has played in presidential politics and policies. Drawing on extensive archival research, Smith paints compelling portraits of the religious lives and presidencies of eleven chief executives for whom religion was particularly important. Faith and the Presidency examines what each of its subjects believed and how those beliefs shaped their presidencies and, in turn, the course of our...

""Since the early 1960s, scholarly thinking on the power of U.S. presidents has rested on these words: "Presidential power is the power to persuade." Power, in this formulation, is strictly about bargaining and convincing other political actors to do things the president cannot accomplish alone. Power without Persuasion argues otherwise. Focusing on presidents' ability to act unilaterally, William Howell provides the most theoretically substantial...

"As Mary Stuckey observes, presidents embrace, articulate, and reinvigorate our sense of national identity. They define who Americans are - often by declaring who they aren't. In this book, she shows how presidential speech has served to broaden the American political community over the past two centuries while at the same time excluding others." "Ambitious and sweeping, Stuckey's work documents the tactics that have naturalized and legitimated inclusion...

Collection of inaugural addresses by United States Presidents, including the five who were never inaugurated, with annotations, brief biographies, and more.