Presidential Upsets

This unique book examines election upsets in American presidential campaigns, offers in-depth analysis of several surprising election results, and explains why the front-running candidate lost. Controversial and unexpected presidential election results have occurred throughout American history. Presidential Upsets: Dark Horses, Underdogs, and Corrupt Bargains carefully examines eleven presidential upsets spread across two centuries of American history, ranking these election upsets by order of magnitude and allowing readers to compare the issues and processes of American elections. After an introductory chapter that establishes the factors that contribute to a presidential upset, such as the comparative advantages of candidates, the issues facing the candidates and electorate, and the political environment during the election, the book offers in-depth analysis of notable surprise election results and explains why the front-running candidate lost. Each major period of American history—such as the Jacksonian period, the Antebellum era, Reconstruction, World War I, the Cold War era, and the post-Cold War era—is covered. The author utilizes primary and secondary sources of material to provide contemporary and historical analysis of these elections, and bases his analysis upon criteria used by political scientists to predict presidential election results.

This unique book examines election upsets in American presidential campaigns, offers in-depth analysis of several surprising election results, and explains why the front-running candidate lost. Controversial and unexpected presidential election results have occurred throughout American history. Presidential Upsets: Dark Horses, Underdogs, and Corrupt Bargains carefully examines eleven presidential upsets spread across two centuries of American history, ranking these election upsets by order of magnitude and allowing readers to compare the issues and processes of American elections. After an introductory chapter that establishes the factors that contribute to a presidential upset, such as the comparative advantages of candidates, the issues facing the candidates and electorate, and the political environment during the election, the book offers in-depth analysis of notable surprise election results and explains why the front-running candidate lost. Each major period of American history—such as the Jacksonian period, the Antebellum era, Reconstruction, World War I, the Cold War era, and the post-Cold War era—is covered. The author utilizes primary and secondary sources of material to provide contemporary and historical analysis of these elections, and bases his analysis upon criteria used by political scientists to predict presidential election results.

This book is a history of the civil liberties records of American presidents from Woodrow Wilson to Barack Obama. It examines the full range of civil liberties issues: First Amendment rights of freedom of speech, press, and assembly; due process; equal protection, including racial justice, women's rights, and lesbian and gay rights; privacy rights, including reproductive freedom; and national security issues. The book argues that presidents have not protected or advanced civil liberties, and that several have perpetrated some of worst violations. Some Democratic presidents (Wilson and Roosevelt), moreover, have violated civil liberties as badly as some Republican presidents (Nixon and Bush). This is the first book to examine the full civil liberties records of each president (thus, placing a president's record on civil rights with his record on national security issues), and also to compare the performance on particular issues of all the presidents covered.

The presidency is a special office. Along with the vice president, the victorious candidate is our only nationally elected official, and the position has come to symbolize American government worldwide. In many ways, the office is greater than the people who have occupied it. In the 200-plus years of our nation’s history, the presidency has grown and evolved dramatically. With the exception of Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Jackson, the nineteenth-century office holders exerted little executive power and mostly deferred to Congress on domestic affairs. Teddy Roosevelt began to change all that, and FDR completed the transformation with his New Deal, laying the foundations for the modern presidency. With the onset of the Cold War, the “imperial” presidency was in full bloom, and after a brief lull, the government’s response to the war on terror has given the office new and unprecedented powers. Undoubtedly now the presidency is not only the most powerful and important job in the United States, but arguably in the world. Presidents’ Most Wanted™ celebrates the office, the people who inhabited it, and the process of winning it, with thirty-five chapters packed full of all sorts of presidential trivia. It covers everything from elections to first ladies to blunders and triumphs, and gives the reader an in-depth look at the most powerful person in the world.

This set provides insight into the lives of ordinary Americans free and enslaved, in farms and cities, in the North and the South, who lived during the years of 1815 to 1860. Throughout the Antebellum Era resonated the theme of change: migration, urban growth, the economy, and the growing divide between North and South all led to great changes to which Americans had to respond. By gathering the important aspects of antebellum Americans' lives into an encyclopedia, The World of Antebellum America provides readers with the opportunity to understand how people across America lived and worked, what politics meant to them, and how they shaped or were shaped by economics. Entries on simple topics such as bread and biscuits explore workers' need for calories, the role of agriculture, and gendered divisions of labor, while entries on more complex topics, such as aging and death, disclose Americans' feelings about life itself. Collectively, the entries pull the reader into the lives of ordinary Americans, while section introductions tie together the entries and provide an overarching narrative that primes readers to understand key concepts about antebellum America before delving into Americans' lives in detail.

Hillary Clinton is arguably one of the most polarizing political figures in American history. She burst into the national spotlight during her husband’s presidential campaign, when she managed to both impress and offend the American public. Since then, Clinton has proven herself a capable public servant, with successful terms in the US Senate and as secretary of state. But controversy continually threatens to undermine her accomplishments, and it often seems that her ambitions get the best of her. This biography tells the story of the rise of remarkable woman, from her humble Midwestern beginnings to a historic run for the White House.

Inspires young learners to explore rights and responsibilities of citizens through the nation’s history and the experience of modern Americans Part of an inspiring series of books that will support students to understand government and civics in modern America through the historical events and people that have shaped them, My Vote Counts will interweave historical context, events and personalities with the experiences of modern Americans to help students understand key social studies topics including the origins of American institutions and values and their relevance to young people’s lives today. The book explores what it means to be a citizen of the USA, with a focus on both rights and responsibilities of citizens and political involvement, ways of obtaining citizenship. Historical topics / events covered include Colonial era, Bill of Rights (equal rights of citizens), slavery, Civil War and emancipation, participation in elections, immigration.