This popular and completely updated reader is the only comprehensive reader on the American Presidency that is also accessible and engaging for undergraduate students.

The editors culled the reading selections with several aims in mind: to include the historical perspective so often neglected in similar texts; to provide developmental views that explain how what happened over the past two centuries got us where we are today; and to present important current issues that are engaging the presidency during the Bush administration. Some articles are “classic” scholarly analyses, some represent the best of current scholarship, and some are engaging insights into the nature of the contemporary presidency.