Balogh and Schulman's Edited Collection of Presidential History

The conference volume, Recapturing the Oval Office: New Historical Approaches to the American Presidency, edited by Brian Balogh, University of Virginia, and Bruce J. Schulman, Boston University, is now out from Cornell University Press:

Several generations of historians figuratively abandoned the Oval Office as the bastion of out-of-fashion stories of great men. And now, decades later, the historical analysis of the American presidency remains on the outskirts of historical scholarship, even as policy and political history have rebounded within the academy. In Recapturing the Oval Office, leading historians and social scientists forge an agenda for returning the study of the presidency to the mainstream practice of history and they chart how the study of the presidency can be integrated into historical narratives that combine rich analyses of political, social, and cultural history.

The authors demonstrate how "bringing the presidency back in" can deepen understanding of crucial questions regarding race relations, religion, and political economy. The contributors illuminate the conditions that have both empowered and limited past presidents, and thus show how social, cultural, and political contexts matter. By making the history of the presidency a serious part of the scholarly agenda in the future, historians have the opportunity to influence debates about the proper role of the president today.

TOC after the jump
Introduction: Confessions of a Presidential Assassin
by Brian Balogh

Part I. Balancing Agency and Structure

1. The Unsettled State of Presidential History
by Stephen Skowronek

2. Personal Dynamics and Presidential Transitions: The Case of Roosevelt and Truman
by Frank Costigliola

3. Narrator-in-Chief: Presidents and the Politics of Economic Crisis from FDR to Obama
by Alice O'Connor

Part II. The Social and Cultural Landscape Presidents Confront

4. The Reagan Devolution: Movement Conservatives and the Right’s Days of Rage, 1988–1994
by Robert O. Self

5. There Will Be Oil: Presidents, Wildcat Religion, and the Culture Wars of Pipeline Politics
by Darren Dochuk

6. Ike’s World: Ideology and Power in Eisenhower’s National Strategy
by William I. Hitchcock

7. Black Appointees, Political Legitimacy, and the American Presidency
by N. D. B. Connolly

8. Presidents and the Media
by Susan J. Douglas

9. The Making of the Celebrity Presidency
by Kathryn Cramer Brownell

Part III. The Presidency and Political Structure

10. Stand by Me: Coalitions and Presidential Power from a Cross-National Perspective
by Cathie Jo Martin

11. Taking the Long View: Presidents in a System Stacked against Them
by Daniel J. Galvin

12. American Presidential Authority and Economic Expertise since World War II
by Michael A. Bernstein

13. The Changing Presidential Politics of Disaster: From Coolidge to Nixon
by Gareth Davies

Conclusion: The Perils and Prospects of Presidential History
by Bruce J. Schulman