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Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 353.032
EAN: 9780029227961
Edition: Rev Ed
ISBN: 0029227968
Label: Free Press
Manufacturer: Free Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 384
Publication Date: March 01, 1991
Publisher: Free Press
Studio: Free Press
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Classic, but outdated
Neustadt's work has been praised by many other reviewers here, and I won't disagree that this is a classic that must be read by any serious student of the American presidency. Nonetheless, his thesis is quite outdated and has been superceded by more recent scholarship.
Neustadt's fatal flaw is to assume that the individual person in the office is the only thing that matters - if that person has the right set of skills, he can successfully bargain to get his goals accomplished. However, ... Read More
Rating: - Machiavelli in the White House
This is indeed one the classics in the field of presidential studies. Neustadt's contribution, although somewhat commonsensical at first glance, is that despite the huge increase in formal powers that the president has acquired over the years, the most fundamental power the president possesses is the power to persuade.
The president must persuade other independently elected officials to do as he sees fit. This, in a city such as Washington DC where people have seen powerful politicians come and ... Read More
Rating:  - One of three seminal works on the Presidency
Neustadt's book describes one of three theories about Presidents. Everyone knows that there is a balance of power between the judiciary, the legislative and the executive branches. Neustadt claims that the President is the weak leg of the stool and that he is unable to govern alone. He must use his powers of persuasion in order to convince the other branches of the government to do his bidding.
As part of a graduate program in political science with a concentration on the United States, you will ... Read More
Rating: - still useful after all these years...
The 1960 edition of Presidential Power has had a long shelf-life, and has grown over time to append chapters on post-Eisenhower presidents. But Neustadt's original thesis -- that presidents are Constitutionally weak, not strong, and that they therefore must leverage their bargaining advantages to the fullest if they want to be effective leaders -- still holds up. (Think the 104th Congress here.) It's hard to skim Neustadt -- he writes the old-fashioned way, in long, graceful sentences and paragraphs ... Read More
Rating: - Don't stop half way through
About half of the way through the book, Neustadt seemed to be saying the same things over and over again. I almost stopped reading. However the incredible tidbits of advice in the first half encouraged me to continue. It was certainly worth it. The last 5 or 6 chapters were written over the period between the Kennedy assasination and the end of the Reagan Administration, allowing Neustadt to ammend many of his ideas from the first 8 chapters (originally published in 1960) making the book far more lively. ... Read More
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