Product Description

Incorporating U.S. presidents from Taft to Bush, this volume uses research-based political psychology, history, and biography to provide a means of determining the performance of candidates as president.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #952630 in Books
• Published on: 1992-01-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 544 pages

From the Publisher
Incorporating U.S. presidents from Taft to Bush, this volume uses research-based political psychology, history, and biography to provide a means of determining the performance of candidates as president.

From the Back Cover

The Presidential Character: Predicting Performance in the White House, Fourth Edition
James David Barber

LONGMAN CLASSICS IN POLITICAL SCIENCE

In revising classic works in political science, Longman celebrates the contributions its authors and their research have made to the discipline. The Longman Classics in Political Science series honors these authors and their work. Providing students with an updated context, each title in the series includes a new foreword, written by one of today’s top scholars, offering a fresh, in-depth analysis of the book and its enduring contributions.

What should we look for in a president?

This timeless question begs reconsideration in light of today’s crucial presidential election season. To that end, The Presidential Character, James David Barber’s well-known, provocative examination of who has the potential to be voted into the highest office in the land–and why–is being reissued as the newest addition to the Longman Classics in Political Science series.

Arguing that patterns in a person’s character, world view, and political style can allow us to anticipate his or her performance as president, this classic text offers explanations and predictions of the performance of past presidents and presidential candidates.

Features

• Presents a new foreword by presidential scholar George C. Edwards III, Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University, that highlights the book’s classic and enduring contributions.
• Includes predictions of presidential performance published before Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush ever served.
• Analyzes the media’s role in providing information about the political candidates and in shaping public opinion of them.
• Draws on historical, biographical, and psychological research to help voters make judicious choices in determining the country’s highest leaders.
• Encourages citizens to be actively involved scholars, critics, and participants in their government.

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About the Author

James David Barber was a Duke University political scientist and provocateur best known for exploring the psychology of Oval Office aspirants and occupants.  He spent years as a consultant to "NBC Nightly News" and as a board member of the Poynter Institute, a center for the study of journalism and media ethics in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Customer Reviews

Putting the American President on the psychiatrist's couch
This is an incredibly fascinating book for those interested in the history of the American Presidency and particularly of the occupants of that office. Mr. Barber analyzes the presidents by two main factors: activity (how much effort a particular president put into performing his job) and the president's personality type and world-view (whether a president viewed his role in the world in a positive or negative light). From this Mr. Barber theorizes that there are four major presidential types: active-positive, active-negative, passive-positive, and passive-negative. By analyzing an individual's personality prior to his entry into the White House, Mr. Barber suggests that one can predict his performance while in the presidency. For example, he categorizes FDR, JFK, and Truman as active-positives (high activity while president with each having a positive view of the world), Taft, Harding and Reagan as passive-positives (low effort put into performance of their duties, while trying to show a positive, if timorous, face to the world), and Coolidge and Ike as passive-negatives (each viewing his role in the presidency as a duty to perform rather than something in which to look forward).

The best parts of the book are in which Mr. Barber talks about the active-negative presidents, all of whom have proved disastrous to the office. Each of these presidents had put much effort and personal investment into the performance of his duties, but without any enjoyment. For each of these men, life has always been a struggle and the personal rewards few. Compulsiveness and anxiety was each man's life-script. None of them could ever afford to rest on his laurels after some success, because if he did so, he would only have to re-double his efforts next time for fear of committing failure. None could admit error and saw compromise with his opposition something to avoid at all costs. All became frozen in the rightness of a certain policy line. This was despite all evidence showing that policy had long been proven a failure.

Woodrow Wilson would not compromise with opposition Republican Senators who had certain reservations about the U.S. becoming a member of the League of Nations. The result was that the League treaty was voted down, the U.S. never became a member, and America entered a generation of isolationism. World War II was the final outcome. Herbert Hoover, sticking to his belief in "rugged individualism," would not modify his opposition to the government's stepping in to ameliorate of the effects of the Great Depression. By the time Hoover put forth his Reconstruction Finance Corporation proposal to provide loans to some businesses, the financial and unemployment crisis in the country seemed beyond repair. The voting public was ready to dump the seemingly heartless and "inactive" Hoover (who was really anything but) for the more positive and hopeful FDR. Lyndon Johnson persisted in sending more and more troops into the Vietnam quagmire despite all evidence indicating that his persistent escalation of the war had long been proven wrong. The result was ever-rising death toll of American boys, massive anti-war demonstrations, and devastating urban riots. Then, of course, there was Richard Nixon, who persisted in his lies and deceipt in the coverup of the Watergate Scandal. Not only did he become the first president to resign, but his legacy was a weakened presidency by a casting of mistrust and suspicion on all the future inhabitants of that esteemed office. Mr. Barber said that all of this could have been avoided if the American people had paid closer attention to Nixon's behavior in previous political campaigns and then deciding not to honor him by elevating him to president.

To Mr. Barber's credit, he readily admits that some presidents do not fit easily into one category or the other. For example, while he generally classifies Eisenhower as a passive-negative, Ike showed from time to time some active traits in the presidency. Likewise, while Truman was basically an active-positive, he often peevish personality could have easily lead him into some negative policy trap.

Marge Ware
This is a fascinating book that was recommended to me by John Dean, former white house counsel to Richard Nixon. Barber breaks down presidents into four different categories; Aggressive-Positive, Aggressive-Negative, Passive-Positive & Passive-Negative. He explains which category different presidents fell into and how it affected their presidency. This is a great book to read particularly with a new president coming into office. Unfortunately Barber has passed away but I would have loved to hear what he had to say about W.