Digital Resources for Researchers

United States Presidency Centre

The Institute for the Study of the Americas has launched its United States Presidency Centre to coincide with a presidential election that has generated unprecedented international interest. The new centre will provide a forum for research and analysis of the presidency in terms of its historical, political and cultural significance.  It will also hold regular events on the developing agenda of the next American president in the fields of foreign, economic and domestic policy.

Read more about the background to the establishment of the Centre, as outlined at the Centre's launch on 24 October 2008.

Iwan Morgan: Blogging the Debt Crisis

Professor Iwan Morgan is writing a blog for the History News Network on the US debt limitation crisis. 

To view the blog, please click here

United States Presidency Centre UK Survey of US Presidents

Franklin D. Roosevelt is first; George W. Bush in bottom ten; Barack Obama highly rated

UK Survey of US Presidents

The United States Presidency Centre [USPC] of the Institute for the Study of the Americas has conducted the first ever UK scholarly survey of US presidents from George Washington to George W. Bush.

In total, 47 UK specialists on US history and politics rated the performance of presidents from 1789 to 2009 in five categories: (i) vision/agenda-setting; (ii) domestic leadership; (iii) foreign policy leadership; (iv) moral authority; and (v) positive historical significance of their legacy. They also gave an interim assessment of Barack Obama but his unfinished presidency was not included in the survey. In contrast to US polls, Franklin D. Roosevelt received top rating over Abraham Lincoln and George Washington respectively. George W. Bush occupied the lowest position of any recent president.

Overall there were significant transatlantic differences but also similarities revealed in the UK survey that testifies to the breadth of interest in US politics and history on the part of British scholars.

An interview with Professor Iwan Morgan, discussing the full results of the Survey:

Publications

Many of these works are published by or in association with the ISA and are based on USPC conferences and symposia.

Titles include:

The Age of Deficits: Presidents and Unbalanced Budgets from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush, by Iwan Morgan

The debate over the federal budget—and the deficit spending it tends to produce—has assumed a renewed urgency for reasons that are painfully clear to all of us. Over the past thirty-two years—from the presidency of Jimmy Carter through that of George W. Bush—the U.S. government has in fact balanced its budget in only four of them, while the fiscal challenges confronting President Obama make a balanced budget anytime soon a remote possibility. This book provides a much-needed historical perspective on this perennially troubling issue. Published November 2009, Kansas University Press. More details.

The Age of Deficits: Presidents and Unbalanced Budgets from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush won the American Politics Group's 2010 Richard Neustadt Book Prize.

The chair of the judges, Professor Robert Singh (Birkbeck), offered the following praise for Professor Morgan’s work:

The Age of Deficits is a truly impressive work of scholarship. Iwan Morgan's thorough immersion in the changing politics of budget deficits takes a panoramic sweep, from the Founding Fathers to Barack Obama. Erudite, carefully reasoned and utilising a formidable array of source material, this monograph is not only timely but also represents a genuinely important contribution to our understanding of what is likely to remain a, if not the, central force shaping US politics for many years to come. Iwan's study is a very worthy winner of the Neustadt Prize.

Right On? Political Change and Continuity in George W. Bush’s America, edited by Iwan Morgan and Philip Davies

George W. Bush is widely regarded as a president of transformative significance. This volume of essays analyses the ambitious but controversial agenda that he has pursued at home and abroad. The contributors assess Bush's presidency in terms of its historical context, first-term record and second-term prospects. Published 2006, Institute for the Study of the Americas. More details.

The Federal Nation: Perspectives on American Federalism, by Iwan W. Morgan and Philip J. Davies

This volume gathers contributors from both the US and UK to provide a comparative examination of federalism in the Bush era, a period of huge change in national politics, but also one of significant shifts in US federalism in relation to social and socioeconomic issues. Published February 2009, Palgrave Macmillan. More details.

Published in Palgrave’s The Evolving American Presidency series

Assessing George W. Bush’s Legacy: The Right Man? Iwan Morgan and Philip John Davies, eds. (New York: Palgrave, 2010)

This book examines George W. Bush’s legacy in terms of his presidential leadership and politics and explains why he was the most controversial president of recent times. It focuses on Bush’s expansion of presidential power in pursuit of the “war on terror,” the ideological and pragmatic foundations of his presidential politics, and the complexity of his legacy in both foreign and domestic policy. In addition to an introductory overview, it contains ten original essays that assess the problems of rating the Bush presidency, the nature of Bush’s presidential government, ideology and ideas in the Bush presidency, the administration’s economic and foreign policies, and the electoral context of the times.

Presidents in the Movies: American History and Politics on Screen, Iwan Morgan, ed. (New York: Palgrave, 2011)

Cinematic depictions of real U.S. presidents from Abraham Lincoln to George W. Bush explore how Hollywood movies represent American history and politics on screen. Morgan and his contributors show how films blend myth and reality to present a positive message about presidents as the epitome of America’s values and idealism until unpopular foreign wars in Vietnam and Iraq led to a darker portrayal of the imperial presidency, operated by Richard Nixon and Bush 43. This exciting new collection further considers how Hollywood has continually reinterpreted historically significant presidents, notably Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, to fit the times in which movies about them were made.

The American Economy and America's Global Economic Power, by Iwan Morgan in Nicholas Kitchen, ed., The United States after Unipolarity, LSE Ideas: London, 2011

Barack Obama’s Democracy Promotion after One Year, by Nicolas Bouchet, published in e-International Relations, February 2010

The Quiet Democrat, by Nicolas Bouchet, PhD student, Institute for the Study of the Americas, published in The World Today July 2009 Vol. 65 No. 7

Conference Papers

Tangled up in Red: Obama and the U.S. Deficit Problem (May 2011)

LSE IDEAS, the University of Manchester and the Eccles Centre at the British Library organised a one-day symposium on Obama and American Power Today, which examined the domestic political and economic situation in the US; new strategies for global influence; and considered the USA and UK in the context of rising powers. Professor Iwan Morgan contributed a paper entitled Tangled up in Red: Obama and the U.S. Deficit Problem. His presentation is available here.

Eisenhower and the Budget: Neustadtian 'Amateur' or Machiavellian 'Professional' (January 2010)

Professor Iwan Morgan delivered this paper at the 2010 American Politics Group conference. It is available here.

Who's Afraid of the L-Word: 'Progressivism' in the New Democrat Era (April 2008)

Originally delivered at the British Association of American Studies Conference at the University of Edinburgh, Professor Iwan Morgan's paper is available here.

Outreach

Finally an important part of the United States Presidency Centre’s mission is to promote broader understanding of the presidency within the context of American politics and government beyond the community of scholars.  To this end, it will engage in outreach activities to non-academic audiences through public lectures, school visits and media interviews.

Organisers

The Director of the United States Presidency Centre is Professor Iwan Morgan, Head of US Programmes at the Institute for the Study of the Americas, and its deputy director is Dr Tim Lynch, Senior Lecturer in US Foreign Policy at the Institute for the Study of the Americas.  They are supported by an advisory body of the following external scholars:  Professor Philip Davies (Eccles Centre, British Library); Professor John Dumbrell (Durham University); Professor James Pfiffner (George Mason University); Professor Andrew Rudalevige (Dickinson College); Professor Robert Singh (Birkbeck College) and Professor Mark White (Queen Mary, London).

The new centre looks forward to an active and wide-ranging programme in its first year of operation and beyond.

Page Updated: Tuesday, December 06 2011