CHH711 The American Presidency in the Twentieth Century

The office of the President was relatively weak in 1900 – as America’s Founding Fathers had intended it should be – but it was invigorated by the presidencies of the two Roosevelts and Woodrow Wilson in the context of two world wars and the Great Depression. Presidential power was further augmented when the United States took on the role of leader of the Free World during the Cold War – the era of the so-called ‘imperial presidency’. The limits of presidential power were demonstrated by Vietnam and Watergate, but again the office was revived, this time by Ronald Reagan. This course will analyse in detail how and why this transformation occurred, considering factors such as the personality of the office-holder, the relationship with Congress and the economic state of the nation at any given time.