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Beyond peace
Review Essays Presidential Politics and Dynastic Pretensions by Irving Louis Horowitz
Beyond Peace. By Richard M. Nixon, (New York: Random House, 1994. 262 pp. $23.00.) Time and Chance: Gerald Ford’s Appointment with History. By James Cannon. (New York: Harper-Collins Publishers, 1994.496 pp. $25.00.)
Eisenhower’s Waromords: RhetoticandLeadersb~@ Edited by MartinJ. Medhurst. (East Lansing: Michigan State University, 1994. 318 pp. $39.95.) Certain Trumpets: i%e Call of Leaders. By Garry Wills. (New York: Simon &
Schuster, 1994. 336 pp. $23.00.)
ChesterBowles: New Dealer in the Cold War. By Howard B. Schaffer. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993. 387 pp. $29.95.) Tension between opposites: Rejlections on the Practice and Theoy of Politics. By Paul H. Nitze. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1993. 212 pp. $22.00.) What a curious political culture America possesses! We define our democracy by its populist content, its Jeffersonian anti-elitism, and look with suspicion at all dynastic regimes as residual elements of feudalism embedded in a European past. And yet, so many American scholars who write on political subjects reveal an unabashed fascination for political leadership-especially executive authority, and strong executive authority at that, Whole journals are dedicated to studying the presidency, and the number of books that pour forth each year on past presidents and their senior appointments surely must exceed the volume of new works on British royalty by a considerable factor. In preparation for the arduous task of driving populist pegs into presidential holes, I had occasion to reread one of my favorite books in this
Irvbg IAX& Horowitz is Hannah Arendt Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Political Science at Rutgers University. He is the author of several relevant works, including Winners and Losers:Polarities in American Politics (Duke University Press, 1984); Ideology and Utopia in the United States (Oxford University Press, 1977); and with Seymour Marrin Lipset, Dialogups on American Politics (Oxford University Press, 1979). His most recent book is The Decomparition of Sociology (Oxford University Press, 1993).
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1995 I 101
Beyond Peace. By Richard M. Nixon, (New York: Random House, 1994. 262 pp. $23.00.) Time and Chance: Gerald Ford’s Appointment with History. By James Cannon. (New York: Harper-Collins Publishers, 1994.496 pp. $25.00.)
Eisenhower’s Waromords: RhetoticandLeadersb~@ Edited by MartinJ. Medhurst. (East Lansing: Michigan State University, 1994. 318 pp. $39.95.) Certain Trumpets: i%e Call of Leaders. By Garry Wills. (New York: Simon &
Schuster, 1994. 336 pp. $23.00.)
ChesterBowles: New Dealer in the Cold War. By Howard B. Schaffer. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993. 387 pp. $29.95.) Tension between opposites: Rejlections on the Practice and Theoy of Politics. By Paul H. Nitze. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1993. 212 pp. $22.00.) What a curious political culture America possesses! We define our democracy by its populist content, its Jeffersonian anti-elitism, and look with suspicion at all dynastic regimes as residual elements of feudalism embedded in a European past. And yet, so many American scholars who write on political subjects reveal an unabashed fascination for political leadership-especially executive authority, and strong executive authority at that, Whole journals are dedicated to studying the presidency, and the number of books that pour forth each year on past presidents and their senior appointments surely must exceed the volume of new works on British royalty by a considerable factor. In preparation for the arduous task of driving populist pegs into presidential holes, I had occasion to reread one of my favorite books in this
Irvbg IAX& Horowitz is Hannah Arendt Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Political Science at Rutgers University. He is the author of several relevant works, including Winners and Losers:Polarities in American Politics (Duke University Press, 1984); Ideology and Utopia in the United States (Oxford University Press, 1977); and with Seymour Marrin Lipset, Dialogups on American Politics (Oxford University Press, 1979). His most recent book is The Decomparition of Sociology (Oxford University Press, 1993).
Winter
1995 I 101