The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents: Eighth Edition contains more in-depth information about every U.S. president to hold office than any other single book. A factual, unbiased look at every American chief executive, this book chronicles their lives, their administrations, their friends and foes, their successes and their failures. This unique reference volume will be fully updated to include the results of the highly controversial 2012 election.

As the central feature on the American political landscape, it is only natural that scholars and commentators focus on the presidency. So much is written about the subject, in fact, that it is often difficult to know where we stand in our understanding of it. The Oxford Handbook of the American Presidency will help scholars assess the state of scholarship on the presidency and the directions in which it needs to move. Never before has the academicliterature on the American presidency received such an extended treatment. Nearly three dozen chapters critically assess both the major contributions to a literature on a dimension of the presidency and the ways in which the literature has developed. The authors of each chapter seek to identify weaknesses in theexisting literature- be they logical flaws, methodological errors, oversights, or some combination therein-and to offer their views about especially productive lines of future inquiry. Equally important, the authors also identify areas of research that are unlikely to bear additional fruits. These chapters offer a distinctive point of view, an argument about the successes and failures of past scholarship, and a set of recommendations about how future work ought to develop. Thus, this volumewill help set the agenda for research on the presidency for the next decade.

Understanding how Congressional political parties utilize floor procedure to advance a legislative agenda is fundamental to understanding how Congress operates. This book offers students and researchers an in-depth understanding of the procedural tools available to congressional leaders and committee chairs and how those tools are implemented in the House of Representatives, the Senate, and during negotiations between the chambers. Divided into four sections (Leadership, House of Representatives, Senate, and Legislative Reconciliation between the Chambers), the contributors present relevant examples of procedure throughout the legislative process. While other volumes provide the party or the procedural perspective, this book combines these two features to create a robust analysis on the role that party can play in making procedural decisions.

In simple, clear language, the new edition of this classic work presents basic explanations of the procedures and rules that govern the United States Senate and House of Representatives. Highlighted sidebars further detail the impact of congressional action with interesting narrative examples from history, along with charts and tables that provide a complete overview of congressional procedures. This edition has been thoroughly updated to reflect the changes on Capitol Hill since 2008. How Congress Works will help readers place recent events in the context of the entire picture of how Congress operates. A detailed index rounds out this introduction to the real Congress.

Journalists have called the U.S. Senate an empty chamber; politicians have lamented that the institution is broken--yet the Senate was once capable of greatness. Senators of the 1960s and 1970s overcame southern opposition to civil rights, passed Great Society legislation, and took the lead in opposing the Vietnam War and holding Richard Nixon accountable for the abuses of Watergate. The Last Great Senate is a vivid portrait of the statesmen who helped steer America during the crisis years of the late 1970s, transcending partisanship and overcoming procedural roadblocks that have all but strangled the Senate since their departure.

For 30 years, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Linda Greenhouse chronicled the activities of the U.S. Supreme Court and its justices as a correspondent for the New York Times. In this Very Short Introduction, she draws on her deep knowledge of the court's history and of its written and unwritten rules to show readers how the Supreme Court really works. Greenhouse offers a fascinating institutional biography of a place and its people--men and women who exercise great power but whose names and faces are unrecognized by many Americans and whose work often appears cloaked in mystery. How do cases get to the Supreme Court? How do the justices go about deciding them? What special role does the chief justice play? What do the law clerks do? How does the court relate to the other branches of government?

An insightful, chronological—by chief justice—examination of the Supreme Court that enables students and readers to understand and appreciate the constitutional role the Court plays in American government and society. Useful for high school students, undergraduate students, and general readers researching the Supreme Court in general, investigating specific issues, or seeking answers to personal interest questions. Provides an accessible resource for chronologically tracing the development of civil and human rights issues from the Warren Court to the present. Examines the legacy of each Chief Justice's Court by its significant cases or decisions as well as its influence on the historical era