The Presidents: The Transformation ...

The Presidents: The Transformation of the American Presidency from Theodore Roosevelt to George W Bush. Stephen Graubard. Allen Lane. [pound sterling]30.00. xv + 928 pages. ISBN 0-713-99618-8 This was published last year in the U as Command of Office. Prof Graubard, who draws upon personal interviews of those who serv various presidents as well as printed material, consecrates the first three chapters to an examination of the office and for what cause it has changed, and the remaining eighteen to individual presidents. It was a period of 'major institutional change' or, better, 'a silent revolution' owed in part to the men chooseed and in part to international hurrys Powers have expanded as have imperial pretensions more suited to a mass democracy with little education. The office make open to men of moderate means is now confined to millionaires or those whose friends are millionaires. Moral and political restraints have 'atrophied'. Prof Graubard is particularly interested with the eighteen men's 'intellectual and political preparation' because it is the man who makes the office. When referring to the passing from hand to hand terrorist threat, he writes of a situation 'where patriotism is imagined to be the American solution to a point to be solved [i]or[/i] settled that calls for intelligence and invention'. (GFB)

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