Cliquer sur une vignette pour aller sur Google Books.
Chargement... The William Howard Taft Presidencypar Lewis L. Gould
Aucun Chargement...
Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. aucune critique | ajouter une critique
Appartient à la sérieAmerican Presidency Series (2009)
Gould argues that Taft wanted to be president and had an ambitious agenda when he took power in March 1909. Approaching his duties more as a judge than as a charismatic executive in the mold of Theodore Roosevelt, Taft soon found himself out of step with public opinion. Gould shows how the Payne-Aldrich Tariff and the Ballinger-Pinchot controversy squandered Taft's political capital and prepared the ground for Democratic victories in the elections of 1910 and 1912. His seamless narrative provides innovative treatments of these crucial episodes to make Taft's presidency more understandable than in any previous account. On Canadian reciprocity, dollar diplomacy, and international arbitration, Gould's work goes beyond earlier cliches about Taft's administration to link his tenure to the evolution of the modern presidency. The break with Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 doomed the Taft presidency, and Gould supplies an evenhanded analysis of the erosion of their once warm friendship. At bottom, the two men clashed about the nature of presidential power, and Gould traces with insight how this personal and ideological rupture influenced the future of the Republican party, and the course of American politics. Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
Discussion en coursAucun
Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)973.91History and Geography North America United States 1901- Roosevelt Through Truman AdministrationsClassification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
Est-ce vous ?Devenez un(e) auteur LibraryThing. |
Although Taft was hand selected by Theodore Roosevelt as his successor, Taft struggled to fill the shoes of the charismatic Roosevelt. Taft faced a number of controversies during his first two years in office, and never seemed to find his political footing. When the Democrats gained Congressional seats in the 1910 elections, Taft had even more trouble achieving his goals. As it became obvious that Taft's stance on major issues and on the powers of the President differed substantially from Roosevelt's, Taft and Roosevelt became openly antagonistic towards one another. When Roosevelt ran as a third party candidate in the 1912 election, Taft finished a distant third and became a one-term president.
Because Taft was President exactly 100 years ago, it was interesting to compare the Presidency from then to now. For example, the State of the Union was not a televised speech (or even a radio-broadcast speech), but a letter to Congress. Taft's use of government funds to travel around the country was controversial, and his trip to Panama was even more unusual.
While this book provided a good description of Taft's presidency, informed by documents that had not been used by previous biographers, it was a little dry. While the major events were covered, there was less analysis of Taft's presidency as a whole. Because Roosevelt played such a big part in Taft's presidency, many of these same events were covered in the Roosevelt biography that I read last month. Even so, I was glad to get a better understanding of this President. ( )