As a university press, we are dedicated to publishing books that encourage intellectual exploration, enrich conversation, and impact lives. Notre Dame Press has been bringing scholarship and knowledge about our political landscape for years, and it’s important to read about the past as we look to the future. Below are a handful of titles from our political theory and political science lists that dwell on the topic of democracy.
There is a look at the 1992 presidential election and how it was affected by elections past, giving us a idea of how our political landscape has both changed and stayed the same. There is a focus on various presidents throughout the years and the effects of their leadership, both at home and abroad. There is a discussion of other forces at play with democracy, such as capitalism, and the way Catholicism interacts with modern politics. There is even an upcoming title focused on how essential a liberal education is to a democratic society.
Take a look at the titles below and let them enrich the current conversation as we head into a new year in our country.
The Glory and the Burden
By Robert Schmuhl
Robert Schmuhl chronicles the American presidency for nearly a century, providing a compelling picture of how the functions of the office and who occupies it have changed over the decades.
The Glory and the Burden: The American Presidency from the New Deal to the Present is a timely examination of the state of the American presidency and the forces that have shaped it since 1933, with an emphasis on the dramatic changes that have taken place within the institution and to the individuals occupying the Oval Office. A new chapter and other elements have been added to the book, which originally appeared in the fall of 2019. This expanded, updated edition probes the election of Joe Biden in 2020, the transition of the White House from Donald Trump to Biden, and Biden’s first several months in office.
“The expanded edition of Robert Schmuhl’s The Glory and the Burden is an urgent and necessary read for anyone craving context and understanding of the American presidency at a volatile time for U.S. democracy. If you’re asking yourself daily about why American politics and the presidency have become so troubled, this book is your answer.”
—Robert Costa, co-author of #1 New York Times best seller Peril and chief election and campaign correspondent for CBS News
American Presidents in Diplomacy and War
By Thomas R. Parker
By analyzing how America’s greatest presidents displayed their mastery of statecraft, American Presidents in Diplomacy and War offers important lessons about the most effective uses of national power abroad.
American Presidents in Diplomacy and War chronicles the major foreign policy crises faced by twelve American presidents in order to uncover the reoccurring patterns of successful and less successful uses of diplomatic, economic, and military power. In this brief and highly readable book, Thomas R. Parker reveals how America’s most successful leaders manage events instead of allowing events to control them.
“An enlightening and insightful assessment of the foreign policy statecraft of several American presidents.”
—New York Journal of Books
Capitalism and Democracy
By Thomas A. Spragens, Jr.
Capitalism and Democracy serves as an introduction to the ongoing political debate about the relationship of capitalism and democracy.
In recent years, the ideological battles between advocates of free markets and minimal government, on the one hand, and adherents of greater democratic equality and some form of the welfare state, on the other hand, have returned in full force. Anyone who wants to make sense of contemporary American politics and policy battles needs to have some understanding of the divergent beliefs and goals that animate this debate. In Capitalism and Democracy, Thomas A. Spragens, Jr., examines the opposing sides of the free market versus welfare state debate through the lenses of political economy, moral philosophy, and political theory.
“Capitalism and Democracy is a remarkably evenhanded book, and especially so in these highly contentious days. Spragens joins a sophisticated understanding of political theory to economic analysis and provides a fuller account of what is at stake in debates about the extent to which the market should be ‘free’ and the government should ‘interfere’ with it than one usually finds in writings on these matters. I read it practically straight through and found it almost as enjoyable as reading a good novel.”
—Richard Dagger, author of Playing Fair
Liberal Education and Democracy
By Bob Pepperman Taylor
Liberal Education and Democracy addresses three vital arguments for liberal education and its integral relationship to democracy.
Liberal education is currently under attack as both politically subversive and economically impractical. In Liberal Education and Democracy, Bob Pepperman Taylor evaluates both the defenses that have been offered for liberal education and the complex relationship between liberal education and democracy. He offers a compelling case for maintaining a strong commitment to this form of education as an essential good for all citizens.
“Bob Pepperman Taylor provides a thoughtful commentary that is timely and provocative as American higher education faces reconsideration, including external pressures to explain and even justify its missions and offerings within the framework of American society, economics, and political systems of belief and action.”
—John R. Thelin, author of A History of American Higher Education
American Statesmanship
Edited by Joseph R. Fornieri, Kenneth L. Deutsch, and Sean D. Sutton
This book, much needed in our public discourse, examines some of the most significant political leaders in American history.
With an eye on the elusive qualities of political greatness, this anthology considers the principles and practices of diverse political leaders who influenced the founding and development of the American experiment in self-government. Providing both breadth and depth, this work is a virtual “who’s who” from the founding to modern times. From George Washington to Frederick Douglass and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to FDR and Ronald Reagan, the book’s twenty-six chapters are thematically organized to include a brief biography of each subject, his or her historical context, and the core principles and policies that led to political success or failure. A final chapter considers the rhetorical legacy of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump.
“From Abraham Lincoln to Donald Trump, American Statesmanship is a kaleidoscope of the good, the bad, and the ugly and an examination of why, despite the evolution of statesmanship in America, we remain a ‘House Divided.’ This book is relevant and necessary at this time.”
—Frank J. Williams, former chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court and founding chair of the Lincoln Forum
Catholic Intellectuals and the Challenge of Democracy
By Jay P. Corrin
Tracing the development of progressive Catholic approaches to political and economic modernization, Catholic Intellectuals and the Challenge of Democracy disputes standard interpretations of the Catholic response to democracy and modernity in the English-speaking world—particularly the conventional view that the Church was the servant of right-wing reactionaries and authoritarian, patriarchal structures.
Starting with the writings of Bishop Wilhelm von Ketteler of Germany, the Frenchman Frédérick Ozanam, and England’s Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, whose pioneering work laid the foundation of the Catholic “third way,” Corrin reveals a long tradition within Roman Catholicism that championed social activism. These visionary writers were the forerunners of Pope John XXIII’s aggiornamento, a call for Catholics to broaden their historical perspectives and move beyond a static theology fixed to the past.
“Social scientist Jay Corrin presents a historical and informative perspective on the progressive drive within the Catholic church between the late 1800s and the mid 1950s—a time when anti-democratic forces appeared to hold sway.”
—Conscience
Voices of Democracy
By Bernard Murchland
In Voices of Democracy, Bernard Murchland probes the minds of some of the greatest political thinkers of our time in an effort to assess the condition of democracy in the world today.
In these conversations, Murchland finds a number of reasons for democracy’s continuing strength, including its embrace of the very ambiguity and contradiction decried by its critics, the constant rethinking of democracy and its practices, and the powerful alliance between democracy and capitalism. He also addresses the contemporary challenges to democracy, including the balancing of privacy and individual rights with equality and community needs and the necessity to strengthen democracy, which flourishes locally, on the national level.
“This is a nice book for those interested in recent work on democracy; the colloquial tone makes it accessible in ways that academic books usually are not.”
—Virginia Quarterly Review
Demanding Democracy
By Robert Schmuhl
Public interest in the 1992 presidential campaign resulted in the highest electoral turnout since the heated, war-focused 1968 race involving Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, and George Wallace. In Demanding Democracy Robert Schmuhl examines the unparalleled interplay among citizens, political figures, and the media during the 1992 election year, arguing that a number of events—the hunger of an angry electorate for answers to their problems, the backlash against the sound-bites and negative spots of 1988, the impact of the “New News” with its proliferation of sources for political information, and Ross Perot’s emergence as a presidential candidate—resulted in the people reshaping political institutions and the media as they demanded a more proximate and participatory democracy.
“Schmuhl, a self-described “citizen-critic,” uses personal observations of and exposure to the popular media to argue that, in 1992, the political media environment was broadened, and, as a consequence, the distance between the politician and the potential voter was reduced. This, it is inferred, holds the promise of a democratic renaissance.”
—The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science