The Evolving Presidency: Landmark Documents - Paperback

by Michael Nelson (Editor)

"The Evolving Presidency selects primary sources useful for tracing the development of the presidency and places them in a single reader, making it a vital resource for students and instructors."

--Robert Robinson, California State University Fullerton

Remind your students that primary sources are an essential part of today′s information-rich age. In Michael Nelson's Sixth Edition of The Evolving Presidency, 60 documents help to anchor the ever-changing presidency in historical context. Students encounter a range of documents--from speeches and debates to letters, landmark Supreme Court decisions, and even tweets--that demonstrate how the presidency is shaped through both word and deed. Every selection has its own headnote that is carefully crafted to convey the significance of the document during its own time and its lasting effects on the office of the presidency.

New to the Sixth Edition:

• This edition contains sixty documents, more than in any previous edition, including additions that reflect historically significant recent events, notably Donald Trump's inaugural address and his employment of Twitter as a form of presidential communication.
• Two brand-new additions from the early days of Donald Trump's presidency:
  • The text of his pessimistic and populist inauguration speech, in which he promised a focus on "America first";
  • A compilation of 68 tweets from one week in July 2017, providing students with a context to analyze his unprecedented use of the social network to directly engage with citizens, colleagues in the government, and even other world leaders.

Author Biography

Michael Nelson is Fulmer Professor of Political Science at Rhodes College and a senior fellow at the University of Virginia's Miller Center. A former editor of the Washington Monthly, his most recent books include Trump's First Year (2018); The Elections of 2016 (2018); The Evolving Presidency: Landmark Documents (2019); The American Presidency: Origins and Development (with Sidney M. Milkis, 2011); and Governing at Home: The White House and Domestic Policymaking (with Russell B. Riley, 2011). Nelson has contributed to numerous journals, including the Journal of Policy History, Journal of Politics, and Political Science Quarterly. He also has written multiple articles on subjects as varied as baseball, Frank Sinatra, and C. S. Lewis. More than fifty of his articles have been anthologized in works of political science, history, and English composition. His 2014 book, Resilient America: Electing Nixon, Channeling Dissent, and Dividing Government, won the American Political Science Association's Richard E. Neustadt Award for best book on the presidency published that year; and his 2006 book with John Lyman Mason, How the South Joined the Gambling Nation, won the Southern Political Science Association's V.O. Key Award.