New & Current Releases
Archives: A-Z By Title
Archives: A-Z By Author
Advanced Search

All-Time High Scores
Best Of 2006
Best Of 2005
Best Of 2004
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Books In Our Forums

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed books.

War And The American Presidency
by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.


N/A

based on 13 reviews
read critic reviews
how did we calculate this?

based on 0 votes
read user comments
rate this book

Compare prices at pricegrabber.com

Buy it at powells.com

Buy it at amazon.com

Buy it at amazon.co.uk

Official Publisher Site

The two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian puts the current war in Iraq in its historical context in terms of the exercise and expansion of Presidential power and the doctrine of unilateralism, or what Schlesinger terms the "Imperial Presidency."

W. W. Norton & Company, 224 pages
09/30/2004
$23.95

ISBN: 0393060020

Nonfiction
Current Events & Politics
History

All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...

New York Review Of Books James Chace

Humane and powerful.

Washington Post Josef Joffe

If we make generous allowance for his politics while paying due respect to his preeminence, this elegant and learned little book... offers a luminous and provocative guide for the perplexed in times of war.

Booklist Brendan Driscoll

This intelligent collection of essays... includes a compelling discussion of the challenges inherent to history's lens.[Aug 2004, p.1882]

Boston Globe Michael D. Langan

'War and the American Presidency" is his elegant, cogent, and civilly argued contribution to the battle that is raging for the soul of the nation.

Chicago Tribune Ted Widmer

Feels like a collection of pointed essays more than an organic whole, which may keep it from becoming a major addition to the Schlesinger canon.... Still, this impassioned jeremiad should be read by anyone wondering how American history fits with the perplexing problems of the present and a world that seems to grow more hateful by the day.

Kirkus Reviews

A sharp, often effective brief against Bush that would be more convincing had Schlesinger not placed his historical objectivity in a blind trust. [1 Jul 2004, p.623]

Library Journal Karl Helicher

Schlesinger presents cogent essays that provide historical background to the Iraqi War. [Jul 2004, p.104]

Los Angeles Times Townsend Hoopes

His tone is personal, his language vernacular; the text as a whole seems to reflect a cranky disappointment at the dark present and prospective state of things. [10 Sep 2004, p.E1]

The Economist

Briskly and elegantly, he covers a lot of ground.

The Nation Michael Kazin

Although there's nothing particularly original about Schlesinger's argument, he does ground it in a more sober historical critique than most antiwar critics have offered.

The New York Times Charles A. Kupchan

[Has] a hurried feel... containing analysis that is at times cursory and claims that go unsubstantiated.... Nonetheless [it contains] valuable appraisals of the Bush presidency.

San Francisco Chronicle Daniel Kurtz-Phelan

Were it not for Schlesinger's erudition and the depth of his historical knowledge, this slim, stitched-together volume might amount to little more than a cranky rant.

The New York Times Book Review Kevin Drum

A longer, more thoroughly researched study might have made the case Schlesinger wants to make -- a case that a longtime liberal stalwart like Schlesinger has earned the right to attempt. But this book is too much of a polemic.

The average user rating for this book is 0.0 (out of 10) based on 0 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Discuss this book in our forums

Return to top of page

War And The American Presidency by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

War And The American Presidency
by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.