Understanding the Presidency. Edited by James P. Pfiffner and Roger H. Davidson, 2nd ed. New York: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers, 2000. 488 pages.

This book was created to meet the needs of instructors in an undergraduate course on the presidency. It tries to balance the need for breadth and depth by including a compilation of previously published articles, excerpts from books, and some new materials that were written specifically for this book. The book also provides some historical materials that argued against the policy choices that were made which led to the development of the modern presidency. Ideally, Understanding the Presidency seeks to provide students who have only a passing familiarity with American history with both an historical perspective and a functional perspective on the evolution of the office of the president...