Books by "William Edward Leuchtenburg"
5 books found
The History of the Supreme Court of the United States
by William M. Wiecek
2006 · Cambridge University Press
The Birth of the Modern Constitution recounts the history of the United States Supreme Court in the momentous yet usually overlooked years between the constitutional revolution in the 1930s and Warren-Court judicial activism in the 1950s. 1941-1953 marked the emergence of legal liberalism, in the divergent activist efforts of Hugo Black, William O. Douglas, Frank Murphy, and Wiley Rutledge. The Stone/Vinson Courts consolidated the revolutionary accomplishments of the New Deal and affirmed the repudiation of classical legal thought, but proved unable to provide a substitute for that powerful legitimating explanatory paradigm of law. Hence the period bracketed by the dramatic moments of 1937 and 1954, written off as a forgotten time of failure and futility, was in reality the first phase of modern struggles to define the constitutional order that will dominate the twenty-first century.
Most American citizens are quick to criticize federal bureaucracy for its size and inefficiency. They assume it has exceeded the intent of our nation's founders; yet men like James Madison and Alexander Hamilton knew that good public administrators were essential to good government. William Richardson here examines the origins, legitimacy, and limitations of public administration from the perspective of the Founders' thought. He shows that these men—especially the authors of The Federalist—advocated an energetic public administration as an essential component of government and even considered the emergence of a "natural aristocracy" of virtuous civil servants. The Founders would see the fault of today's federal bureaucracy, argues Richardson, not as much in its size as in the character of its members. Richardson relates the Founders' belief that the nation should strive to produce public servants committed to developing character traits, such as wisdom and moderation, that would exemplify the highest ideals of the republic and thus ensure its survival. They anticipated some self-interest on the part of administrators, but believed it would be held in check by public opinion and the political process. To test the success of the Founders' ideal, Richardson examines both the character of administrators and the role of ethics in forming that character. He explores the various plans for educating public leaders throughout American history and looks at how attitudes toward public administration have changed in this century, from Woodrow Wilson's scientific ideal to recent proposals to downsize government. Among other suggestions, Richardson advocates reforming existing institutions by emphasizing character. Democracy, Bureaucracy, and Character is an exercise in legitimizing public administration, offering important insights into the Founders' thoughts that can be applied to today's debate over government bureaucracy. Public administration may be problematic by nature, observes Richardson, but it is crucial to our form of government. Through his analysis we can see that, while bureaucracy and democracy have long had an uneasy relationship, neither can be effective unless we fully assess the place and purpose of character in the American regime.
In this volume Rozell and Peterson bring together a collection of new essays exploring the unparalleled impact of Franklin D. Roosevelt on the modern presidency. Of all the modern presidents, FDR looms largest. Indeed, most scholars date the origins of the modern presidency to FDR, and many assert that no one since has achieved his level of greatness in office. The essays are organized into two broad sections: The first examines FDR's impact on the creation and development of the administrative presidency and the legacy of the New Deal; the second looks at FDR's legacy to presidential leadership and the exercise of presidential powers. An important volume for scholars and other researchers of the FDR era and the modern American presidency.
This book focuses, not on the Constitutional balance of power between Congress and the White House—a focus that restricts analysis to questions of means—but on the more unsettling and often unexamined question of the ends of the presidency and American public policy. It offers a "structural theory" which links what a president can do to the underlying interests behind—and ideology of—the capitalist state. Structural theory insists upon an encounter between theories of the state and theories of the presidency, and in so doing steers the field of presidential studies into largely uncharted territory. Grover explores the tradeoffs and limitations encountered by Presidents Carter and Reagan as they pursued the goals of economic prosperity and national security. He argues that the limitations imposed on the presidency are more complicated than the personal deficiencies of a particular person. Such structural limitations, Grover notes, are not merely constitutional but economic and statist. His analogy of the "president as prisoner" in this larger sense is compelling.
The histories presented here are of a select group of US presidents, their inspired leadership characteristics, and how they may inspire us today. The traits these presidents possessed were cultivated over a lifetime of lived experience and immortalized through the power of the presidential word—speeches, letters, and addresses—which collectively represent the most transcendent documents in American history. Viewed through the lens of nuance, complication, human emotion, pathos, and drama, William Haldeman sets forth the lives of these presidents in ways to help inform our own lives, from leveraging our experience and instincts to making the right calls when they matter the most. Grounded in an interdisciplinary approach, Haldeman appeals to both scholars and general audience readers alike, offering a refreshing view of presidential leadership that not only elevates leadership as a central part of the scholarly field, but also broadly engages American presidency enthusiasts and readers of history, biography, politics, and leadership development.