Books by "Robert S. McElvaine"
5 books found
The Presidency of George W. Bush is the first balanced academic study to analyze the entirety of his presidency—domestic, social, economic, and national security policies—as well as the administration’s response to 9/11 and the subsequent War on Terror. In so doing, John Robert Greene argues persuasively that the judgment of most scholars—that the Bush administration was a complete failure—has been made in haste and without the benefit of primary sources. This book is the first scholarly work to make wide use of the documents at the George W. Bush Presidential Library, many of which have only recently been made available to researchers through the Freedom of Information Act. John Robert Greene offers a balanced assessment and nuanced conclusions supported by documentary evidence. Yet in doing so he does not absolve the Bush administration of its shortcomings. The Presidency of George W. Bush shows that the administration could be vindictive, as demonstrated by the Plame Wilson affair and the firing of the US attorneys. It all too often moved too slowly, as shown by the National Security Council’s lethargic handling of terrorism pre-9/11, the failed attempt to revise Social Security, and the sluggish reaction to Hurricane Katrina. It was an administration that accepted, and acted on, the highly suspect theory of the unitary presidency as advocated by Dick Cheney and accepted by the president. On the other side of the balance sheet, however, the evidence also makes it eminently clear that the Bush administration was responsible for many positive achievements: No Child Left Behind set the nation on the road toward affecting serious educational reform. In healthcare reform, the Bush administration both strengthened the Medicare system and extended its benefits for millions of Americans. And Bush did more to combat the worldwide scourge of AIDS, particularly in Africa, than any other president. In sum, the actions of this presidency continue to affect the presidencies of each of his successors as well as the trajectory of world history to the present day.
"America's History helps AP students: Grasp vital themes: The seventh edition emphasizes political culture and political economy to help students understand the ways in which society, culture, politics, and the economy inform one another. Understand periodization: America's History's unique seven-part structure, which organizes history into distinct eras, introduces students to periodization and helps them understand cause and effect, identify historical continuities, and track change over time. Develop the skills they need to succeed: America's History's hallmark analytical narrative and pedagogy help students synthesize what they've learned and interpret history for themselves."--Back cover.
America's History, Combined Volume
by James A. Henretta, Rebecca Edwards, Robert O. Self
2011 · Macmillan
"America's History helps AP students: Grasp vital themes: The seventh edition emphasizes political culture and political economy to help students understand the ways in which society, culture, politics, and the economy inform one another. Understand periodization: America's History's unique seven-part structure, which organizes history into distinct eras, introduces students to periodization and helps them understand cause and effect, identify historical continuities, and track change over time. Develop the skills they need to succeed: America's History's hallmark analytical narrative and pedagogy help students synthesize what they've learned and interpret history for themselves."--Back cover.
America: A Concise History, Volume Two: Since 1865
by James A. Henretta, Rebecca Edwards, Robert O. Self
2012 · Macmillan
With fresh interpretations from two new authors, wholly reconceived themes, and a wealth of cutting-edge scholarship, the Fifth Edition of America: A Concise History is designed to work perfectly with the way you teach the survey today. Building on the book’s hallmark strengths—balance, explanatory power, and a brief-yet-comprehensive narrative—as well as its outstanding full-color visuals and built-in primary sources, authors James Henretta, Rebecca Edwards, and Robert Self have shaped America into the ideal brief book for the modern survey course, at a value that can’t be beat.
The Kidnapping and Murder of Little Skeegie Cash
by Robert Alvin Waters, Zack C. Waters
2014 · University of Alabama Press
Informed by thousands of pages of newly released FBI files, The Kidnapping and Murder of Little Skeegie Cash tells the gripping story of the only crime investigated by J. Edgar Hoover himself, the sensational 1938 murder of a five-year-old boy from the Florida Everglades. In his long and storied career, J. Edgar Hoover investigated only one case personally, the 1938 kidnapping and murder of five-year-old Floridian James “Skeegie” Cash. What prompted the director himself to fly from Washington, DC, to a rain-drenched hamlet on the edge of the Everglades? Congress had slashed FBI funding, forcing Hoover to lay off half his agents. The combative Hoover believed if he could bring Skeegie’s killer to justice, the halo of positive publicity would revive the fortunes of the embattled FBI. In The Kidnapping and Murder of Little Skeegie Cash, Robert A. Waters and Zack C. Waters bring to life the drama of the abduction, the payment of a $10,000 ransom, the heartbreaking manhunt for Skeegie and his kidnapper, the arrest and confession of Franklin Pierce McCall, and the killer’s trial and execution. Hordes of reporters swarmed into the little village south of Miami, and for thirteen days until McCall confessed, the case dominated national headlines. The authors capture the drama and the detail as well as the desperate and sometimes extralegal lengths to which Hoover went to crack the case. Using the Freedom of Information Act, the authors obtained more than four thousand pages of FBI files and court documents to reconstruct this important but forgotten case. The tragedy that played out in the swamps of Dade County constituted the backdrop for a political struggle that would involve J. Edgar Hoover, the United States Congress, and even president Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Hoover and the president prevailed, and within two years the FBI grew from 680 employees to more than 14,000. No books and few articles have been published about this historic case.