Booktopia has been placed into Voluntary Administration. Orders have been temporarily suspended, whilst the process for the recapitalisation of Booktopia and/or sale of its business is completed, following which services may be re-established. All enquiries from creditors, including customers with outstanding gift cards and orders and placed prior to 3 July 2024, please visit https://www.mcgrathnicol.com/creditors/booktopia-group/
Add free shipping to your order with these great books
The Presidents and the People : Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It - Corey Brettschneider

The Presidents and the People

Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It

By: Corey Brettschneider

eBook | 2 July 2024

At a Glance

eBook


RRP $59.35

$47.99

19%OFF

or 4 interest-free payments of $12.00 with

Instant Digital Delivery to your Booktopia Reader App

American presidents have often pushed the boundaries established for them by the Constitution; this is the inspirational history of the people who pushed back.

Imagine an American president who imprisoned critics, spread a culture of white supremacy, and tried to upend the law so that he could commit crimes with impunity.

In this propulsive and eminently readable history, constitutional law and political science professor Corey Brettschneider provides a thoroughly researched account of assaults on democracy by not one such president but five. John Adams waged war on the national press of the early republic, overseeing numerous prosecutions of his critics. In the lead-up to the Civil War, James Buchanan colluded with the Supreme Court to deny constitutional personhood to African Americans. A decade later, Andrew Johnson urged violence against his political opponents as he sought to guarantee a white supremacist republic after the Civil War. In the 1910s, Woodrow Wilson modernized, popularized, and nationalized Jim Crow laws. In the 1970s, Richard Nixon committed criminal acts that flowed from his corrupt ideas about presidential power. Through their actions, these presidents illuminated the trip wires that can damage or even destroy our democracy.

Corey Brettschneider shows that these presidents didn't have the last word; citizen movements brought the United States back from the precipice by appealing to a democratic understanding of the Constitution and pressuring subsequent reform-minded presidents to realize the promise of "We the People." This is a book about citizens—Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, Daniel Ellsberg, and more—who fought back against presidential abuses of power. Their examples give us hope about the possibilities of restoring a fragile democracy.

on

More in History of the Americas

Shiloh : The Battle That Changed the Civil War - Larry J. Daniel

eBOOK

God and Ronald Reagan : A Spiritual Life - Paul Kengor

eBOOK

RRP $37.39

$29.99

20%
OFF
God in the White House : A History - Randall Herbert Balmer

eBOOK

RRP $31.89

$25.99

19%
OFF
A Question of Loyalty - Douglas C. Waller

eBOOK

RRP $28.59

$22.99

20%
OFF
Thomas Jefferson : Author of America - Christopher Hitchens

eBOOK

RRP $37.39

$29.99

20%
OFF
Nixon and Kissinger : Partners in Power - Robert Dallek

eBOOK

RRP $31.89

$25.99

19%
OFF
The Road to Woodstock - Michael Lang

eBOOK

RRP $28.59

$22.99

20%
OFF
One Day in History : September 11, 2001 - Rodney P. Carlisle

eBOOK

RRP $18.69

$14.99

20%
OFF