Command of Office: How War, Secrecy, and Deception Transformed the Presidency, from Theodore Roosevelt to George W. Bush

by Stephen R. Graubard

Command of Office reveals the remarkable-and dangerous-concentration of power in the American presidency over the course of the twentieth century, told through incisive analyses of the eighteen men who have held the office and the events that shaped their presidencies. Stephen Graubard tracks the steady expansion of secrecy as a tool of presidential authority, one that inevitably diminished the power of the other two branches of government. Widely esteemed by his fellow historians and with unique access to former members of both Republican and Democratic administrations, Graubard has written a masterful history of presidential power-essential reading for anyone concerned with American politics.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, The United States Of America, Presidents

744 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2004

About the author

STEPHEN R. GRAUBARD was former editor of Daedalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and professor of history at Brown University.

Reviews

[Ted Hunt · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a real slog. I bought it used at Barnes and Noble, as its title was intriguing. However, I later looked up the price of used copies on Amazon, and the $6 that I paid for the book was a vast overpayment. Mr. Graubard taught courses on the American presidency, and this book comes across as a literary manifestation of his lectures. It is pretty thorough, but the subtitle is very misleading, as there is very little analysis of the transformation of the office. Instead we are offered things like Harry Truman's biography, Eisenhower's military career, and inside looks at many political conventions. While there are many interesting anecdotes in these sections, they say nothing about the nature of the office of the president. In general, there was not a lot that was new in this book, especially if one has read other books about these men, and there were a number of shocking factual errors. While putting the Tet Offensive in 1967 might not be a big deal to some, taking it out of the election year of 1968 is a huge mistake. There were five men arrested at the Watergate Hotel, not three, and the election of 1888, not 1876, was, before 2000, the most recent election where the winner got fewer popular votes than the loser (a horrible error for a presidential scholar to make). There were other small, but irritating factual errors as well, and it left me wondering how much time was spent reviewing and editing this book. But my biggest misgiving about the book is that it did not come close to fulfilling the promise of the subtitle. The author clearly has his "favorites" when it comes to presidents, and if he is to be believed, we haven't had a decent president since Truman. Well, if that is true, then perhaps he might have used his time to write about why modern American has produced such a string of mediocre leaders. That certainly would have been a much different book, but it might have contributed more than this volume of rehashed narrative on the twentieth century presidents.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally, after 13 months, I've finished reading this book. But I don't regret taking that long.

It's the most insightful work about 20th-century US Presidents I've ever read. Better than Wikipedia!

I was introduced to those I know little about, and suprised at new revelations about famous ones.

It's a book filled with foreign policy decisions and domestic policy innovations. It detailed each President's rise, what they did right, which legacy of theirs endures up to this day, and how some fell from grace.

It revealed to me how the US President and his Cabinet closely resembles a king/queen and his/her courtiers. Only a few were able to express opinions that differ from the President's, and provide advice that could have helped the President in his decisions.

More importantly, it showed me how the US brand of democracy has worked over the years and how it's seen to continue working in the future, amid global threats like terrorism and global warming.

The book's lessons about democracy and presidential power should resonate here in the Philippines, also a democratic nation, once colonized by Americans themselves.

I certainly learned a lot! I was inspired at how Stephen Graubard had compiled all that information and made it digestible to readers like me.

I wish the same could be done to Philippine presidents.

[Kirsten · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a very brief (despite the page count) overview of the U.S. Presidents from Teddy Roosevelt to George W. Bush. It is supposed to discuss how each President expanded presidential power but more often it digresses into the author's biases about each President and randomly selected historical events that he has chosen to highlight. To be fair, it's an ambitious work spanning many different personalities and important historical events, but I think that's what makes it so hard to read (took me two years to actually get through).

I think the premise of the book is very interesting, but I think I would have preferred a more integrated look at the concept, not the individual case studies presented. It would have been easier to look at the topic as a whole. By the time I got to the later Presidents, I had forgotten his points about the earlier ones, and he didn't really connect the dots except between adjoining Presidential Terms.

It's a long book, and if you have to write a paper or something like that, I recommend just skipping to the Presidents in the time period you are interested in.