by Ken Gormley
First published 2016
Ken Gormley examines how every American president from Washington through Obama confronted and molded the Constitution during their time in office. Leading historians and legal scholars analyze the constitutional conflicts each president faced and the decisions that transformed the document's meaning. The book traces pivotal moments from Washington's early clashes with Congress through the emergence of the national security presidency under Bush and Obama. Contributors including Richard Ellis, Gary Hart, Stanley Kutler, and Kenneth Starr demonstrate how individual presidents wielded and expanded executive power. Gormley connects constitutional themes across centuries of American leadership, showing how presidential actions continuously reshaped the nation's founding document. This comprehensive study reveals the dynamic relationship between presidential power and constitutional interpretation throughout American history.
Genres: biography, history, political-science, non-fiction, academic, american-history
Vibes: thought-provoking
Tropes: historical-nonfiction
Setting: United States
Period: 19th-century, 20th-century, 21st-century
672 pages · Hardcover · NYU Press