Triumphs and Tragedies of the Modern Congress: Case Studies in Presidential Leadership

When President Dwight D. Eisenhower encouraged R. Gordon Hoxie to establish what would become the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress (CSPC), the Supreme Allied Commander-turned-President lamented the lack of historical case studies to prepare him for civilian political leadership. As a military leader, he could pour over analyses of previous battles, deployments and international crises, yet no similar repository of institutional memory existed for the equally complex arts of governing and legislating.

In 2000, the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress published Triumphs and Tragedies of the Modern Presidency, a collection of case studies focused on the complexities of Presidential leadership—a modern fulfillment of President Eisenhower’s wish. This anthology of case studies was written by subject matter experts, and intended to provide the President-elect with lessons from his predecessors’ experiences in a wide array of issues. The second edition was published in 2016.

publication details

• Authors:

  Maxmillan Angerholzer III, James Kitfield, Christopher P. Lu, and Norman Ornstein

• Publication date:

  April 2016

• Pages:

  451