Few people have made decisions as momentous as Eisenhower, nor has one person had to make such a varied range of them. From D-Day to Little Rock, from the Korean War to Cold War crises, from the Red Scare to the Missile Gap controversies, he was able to give our country eight years of peace and prosperity by relying on a core set of principles. These were informed by his heritage and upbringing, his strong character and his personal discipline, but he also avoided making himself the centre of things. He tried to be the calmest man in the room, not the loudest, so instead of seeking to fulfill his personal desires and political needs, he pursued a course he called the 'Middle Way' that tried to make winners on both sides of a situation. In addition, Ike maintained a big picture view on any situation; he was a strategic, not an operational leader. He also ensured that he had all the information he needed to make a decision. His talent for envisioning a whole, especially in the context of the long game, and his ability to sees causes and various consequences, explains his success as Allied Commander President. Then, after making a decision, he made himself accountable for it, prizing responsibility most of all his principles. How Ike Led shows us not just what a great American did, but why - and what we can learn from him today.

The first full-scale biography of one of the most important-and enigmatic-leaders in Israeli history This riveting biography is the first to provide a satisfactory answer to the question, Who was Menachem Begin? Based on wide-ranging research among archival documents and on testimonials and interviews with Begin's closest advisers, the book presents a detailed new portrait ofIsrael's founding leader. Among the many topics Avi Shilon holds up to new light are Begin's antagonistic relationship with David Ben-Gurion, his controversial role in the 1982 Lebanon War, his unique leadership style, the changes in his ideology over the years, and the mystery behind the total silence he maintained at the end of his career. Through Begin's remarkable life, the book also recounts the history of the right-wing segment of Israeli society, a story essential to understanding the Israel of today.

This book traces how Edward Heath and Margaret Thatcher, during their respective years as Conservative Opposition Leaders (1965-70 and 1975-79), managed their Party's attempts to ensure a return to government, each after two electoral defeats. They did so in the context of an emergent New Conservatism, championed by the likes of Enoch Powell, Keith Joseph and Nigel Lawson, which betokened a long-term change from the post-war Butskellite settlement. Against a national background of declining economic status, high inflation, debilitating public sector strikes and internal Conservative Party debates, particularly over industrial relations policy and monetarism, they adopted strikingly different approaches to policy-making in Opposition. The book illustrates how, paradoxically, Heath's technocratic over-prescription failed to save his eventual premiership, while Thatcher's under-committed policy design failed to impede her leading a purposeful and transformative government i n the 1980s.

Leadership accountability - for violence, corruption and environmental harm - is a new aspect of globalization and civil society. This innovative forward-looking analysis explains how 'cumulative lock-in' fuels leadership deceit, and then a reaction rooted in our evolutionary psyche. Moral authority may shift from West to East, and 'direct democratic accountability' may supersede voting systems. If legitimate accountability fails, global feuding and retributive accountability may continue. The lessons are for those learning to be, or learning to question, leaders.

Based on a selection of 30 election campaign speeches during Obama's first run for the American presidency in 2008, this book investigates the Democratic presidential candidate's much celebrated rhetoric from a cognitive semantics point of view.

The book discussed how contemporary political campaigns are increasingly sensitive to candidate-centered appeals, analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of their own candidate to determine how their personalities, backgrounds, and likability and background fit into a campaign narrative, theme, and issue agenda.

The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by Orthodox Jew Yigal Amir, twenty years ago this November, remains the most consequential event in the country's recent history. Killing a King relates parallel stories over the two years leading up to the assassination, as Rabin plotted political deals he hoped would lead to peace and Amir plotted murder. Dan Ephron covered both the rally where Rabin was assassinated and the subsequent murder trial. This deeply researched narrative is based on a trove of documents from the era and interviews with the key players, including members of Amir's family. Only through the prism of the murder is it possible to understand Israel today, from the paralysis in peace-making to the relationship between Netanyahu and Obama.

The shortest-serving prime minister in history. The first former leader to lose their seat since 1935. An inside look at how it all went so wrong.

Liz Truss's disastrous premiership was the shortest and most chaotic in British history. In the space of just 49 days, Truss witnessed the death of the longest-reigning monarch, attempted to remould the economy, triggered a collapse in the value of Sterling and was forced on a series of embarrassing U-turns that ultimately led to her resignation. The aftershocks of her time in office are still felt today. How did she blow her opportunity so spectacularly?

Based on exclusive interviews with key aides, allies and insiders, and focusing on the critical steps that led to her demise, this gripping behind-the-scenes work of contemporary history gives the definitive account of Truss's premiership.

This volume uses essential and illuminating primary documents as a portal for understanding the evolution and present parameters of presidential power, the relationship between America's three branches of government, and why wartime often leads presidents to claim expansive powers and authority. Presidential Power: Documents Decoded provides a thorough examination of the historical and political context of key, critical moments in constitutional history and presidential power that makes possible opportunities for students to explore American politics in an interesting, memorable, and dynamic way. Each of the case studies reveals important dimensions of the constitutional order in the United States—and enables readers to better grasp how executive power has shifted and expanded. The book takes specific events, people, institutions, or ideas and places them in a broader context so that readers can observe patterns and make connections among seemingly disparate happenings and concepts relating to executive power. Accompanied by explanatory sidebars, the included primary sources let students examine actual documentary evidence of key elements of executive power—for example, the presidential memorandum, the National Security cable, and the prisoner's petition—and reach their own judgment of the implications of that document for the American political system.

This book examines the driving forces behind national-level politics, changes to the judiciary, social control, economic reform, environmental protection, urban development, the management of ethnic relations, as well as foreign and security policy orientation in China under Xi Jinping. It explains Xi's ambition, examines the limitations he has to confront, and maps the direction of reform he pursues. The book starts off by examining how the consultative Leninist nature of the political system continues to shape politics and policy in China under Xi, and what the China dream Xi advocates actually entails domestically and beyond China. It ends by highlighting the megatrends that will prevail in the decade when Xi is expected to stay in power. The book also includes contributions from five Central Party School professors whose views are taken seriously by the Chinese leadership.

This book explores Charles De Gaulle's use and strict control of television between 1958 and 1969, highlighting the association between charismatic power and television with regards to legitimizing the Gaullist leadership and determining an evolution towards presidentialism during the Fifth Republic. A protagonist of European political history of the twentieth century, Charles de Gaulle was a pioneer in the use of mass media: in the Second World War he had earned the nickname of General-micro due to his reliance on radio communication; in 1958 he then started an substantive and fruitful use of television, which some of his opponents labelled as 'telecracy'. From difficult beginnings, where he followed the advice of publicity and communication experts, through his masterful TV appearances during the dramatic moments of the Algerian War, to the presidential campaign of 1965 and the crisis of May 1968, the author paints a compelling fresco of de Gaulle as the first TV leader in contemporary European history. The book will appeal to students and scholars interested in the fields of French politics, political communication and political leadership.

Ghana has always held a position of primacy in the African political and historical imagination, due in no small part to the indelible impression left president Kwame Nkrumah. This study examines the symbolic strategies he used to construct the Ghanaian state through currency, stamps, museums, flags, and other public icons.

Ben Viljoen sal in die eerste plek onthou word as die Boeregeneraal, die oorwinnaar in die Slag van Vaalkrans en, danksy FW Reitz se bekende gedig, die veroweraar van die Lady Roberts. Viljoen was flambojant van geaardheid, romanties, ’n sterk leier, behulpsaam en lojaal. Gedurende die Anglo-Boereoorlog word hy bevorder van kommandant tot assistent-kommandant-generaal. Sy individualisme het hom egter verhinder om effektief in ’n groter georganiseerde eenheid te funksioneel. Hy verkies om sy eie kop te volg en sy besluite was dikwels omstrede. Kort voor die einde van die oorlog word hy krygsgevange geneem en na St. Helena verban. Na die oorlog vestig hy hom in Nieu-Mexiko in die VSA en Mexiko en word daar militere raadgewer van die Mexikaanse president.

After the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, the leaders of Europe at the Congress of Vienna aimed to establish a new balance of power. The settlement established in 1815 ushered in the emergence of a genuinely European security culture. In this volume, leading historians offer new insights into the military cooperation, ambassadorial conferences, transnational police networks, and international commissions that helped produce stability. They delve into the lives of diplomats, ministers, police officers and bankers, and many others who were concerned with peace and security on and beyond the European continent. This volume is a crucial contribution to the debates on securitisation and security cultures emerging in response to threats to the international order.

It is a well-known fact that Prime ministers are fond of talking, in fact at times it seems impossible to get them to do anything else. The reason for this constant talking is that Prime Ministers are all too aware of the importance of frequently talking to and communicating with the electorate. Political rhetoric has a central function that goes far beyond the need to rouse people at election time or in times of great crisis but rather persuasive political talk by prime ministers is central to the practice of modern government itself.This book argues that there are institutionalised patterns in the speeches that prime ministers give. Like an old-style jukebox, there are only a certain number of records in the prime ministerial machine. Inevitably, each prime minister will play the same songs in the same order as their predecessor. This repetitive rhetoric has an impact not just on the minds of voters, but also on day-to-day governance in Westminster system democracies.

There is little consensus about the nature of the political system that has emerged during the Putin presidency. This collection considers the issues arising in this connection, focusing more closely on institutions such as the presidency and the security police, and on the socioeconomic dimensions of political power.

Albertina Sisulu is revered by South Africans as the true mother of the nation. A survivor of the golden age of the African National Congress, whose life with the second most important figure in the ANC exemplified the underpinning role of women in the struggle against apartheid.

In 1944 she was the sole woman at the inaugural meeting of the radical offshoot of the ANC, the Youth League, with Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo and Anton Lembede in the vanguard. Her final years were spent in an unpretentious house in the former white Johannesburg suburb of Linden. A friend said of her, "she treated everybody alike. But her main concern was the welfare of our women and children." This abridged account of Sisulu’s overflowing life provides a fresh understanding of an iconic figure of South African history.

This new abridged memoir is written by Sindiwe Magona, one of South Africa’s most prolific authors, and Elinor Sisulu, writer, activist and daughter-in-law of Albertina.

This book offers new perspectives on British nuclear policy-making at the height of the Cold War, arguing that the decisions taken by the British government during the 1950s and 1960s in pursuit of its nuclear ambitions cannot be properly understood without close reference to Duncan Sandys, and in particular the policy preferences that emerged from his experiences of the Second World War and his efforts leading Britain's campaign against the V-1 and V-2. Immersing himself in this campaign against unmanned weaponry, Sandys came to see ballistic missiles as the only guarantor of nuclear credibility in the post-war world, placing them at the centre of his strategic thinking and developing a sincerely-held and logically-consistent belief system which he carried with him through a succession of ministerial roles, allowing him to exert a previously undocumented level of influence on the nature of Britain's nuclear capabilities and its approach to the Cold War. This book shows the profound influence Sandys' personal belief system had on Britain's attempts to acquire a credible nuclear deterrent.

Jan Smuts, one of the most infamous South Africans of the twentieth century remains a controversial figure. Was he one of the outstanding statesmen of his time or was he perhaps a traitor of Afrikaner interests and possibly a racist? Today there are still strong opinions on Smuts’s role.

Like Paul Kruger at the end of the nineteenth century, and Nelson Mandela as the twentieth century drew to a close, it was Jan Smuts who stood head and shoulders above his contemporaries in the first half of the twentieth century; he was a leader of extraordinary stature and his statesmanship is recognised internationally. And yet, the NP and ANC governments have downplayed his contributions for decades, because it did not endorse their Afrikaner and black nationalist versions of South African history. A reappraisal of Smuts will fill a gap in the literature on the history of South Africa in the first half of the twentieth century. Many of the biographies and other works on Smuts appeared during his lifetime or soon after his death. Today, a few generations later, we have a better perspective on his contributions within the historical context of his time. New evidence continues to come to light, making it possible to reach a more informed opinion on questions about Smuts, issues which previously could not be answered conclusively.

The purpose of the book, written almost three generations after his death, is to recall and re-evaluate Smuts’s contributions in various fields and in this way introduce him to the younger generation. It is important that Smuts be judged in the context of his particular time and circumstances. As far as his outlook on war and peace, civilisation, race and class differences, the capitalist system and South Africa’s place in the wider world are concerned, Smuts was certainly a product of his time. It would be unfair to measure him and his contemporaries against today’s norms and values. To do justice to him, his supporters, as well as his opponents and critics, due consideration should be accorded to how they lived, thought and reasoned in that era.

The book describes the impact of cultural perceptions on rulers' behaviors in the United Arab Emirates, once the Trucial States. Despite differences in size, economic resources, and external political pressures, the seven emirates' rulers utilized very similar cultural expectations to gain the support of others. The author describes what has generally been only touched upon before--the significant but largely "invisible" roles women and marriage play in the political process of tribal societies.

A political, critical, and analytical biography of Yitzhak Rabin, this book makes use of recently-opened archival material and provides explanations for the important episodes in Rabin's life. Leslie Derfler examines Rabin's longtime leadership of the Israeli military and state and Rabin's efforts to secure a peace with Egypt and the Palestinians. He reveals that, while Rabin's opposition to a two-state solution remained firm, Rabin had a longstanding belief in Palestinians' right to shape their own destiny and an underlying awareness of the need for a political rather than military solution to the problem of Israeli security.

Jacana is delighted to announce the forthcoming publication of a new pocket biography of Nelson Mandela by the renowned South African historian, Colin Bundy. Writing with his characteristic elegance, insight and striking turn of phrase, Colin Bundy sets out to extricate the person of Mandela from a pervasive sense of Mandela; distinguishing between the actual, historical Mandela and a generalised and essentially mythical Mandela. There are two main elements in this task. The first involves locating Mandela’s life, his character and actions, in South African history, which Bundy does in five masterly chapters. The second element, the subject of the first and the final chapters, asks a different set of questions, about memory and remembering; about legacy in the long term. This book will undoubtedly establish itself as the finest introduction to Mandela’s life available. It is not only a skilful overview and summary of the 20th-century icon but a fresh and engaging look, each page revealing new insights and original observations expressed in felicitous prose.

A reexamination of Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policy, this study challenges prevailing images of Chamberlain as a tragic hero--a man of peace, naively impressed by the dictators, who did his best under difficult circumstances to prepare his country for war. Instead, the author suggests that Chamberlain dominated his government and demonstrated an uncanny ability to manipulate those around him in support of his own personal vision of Britain's national interest. The failure to rearm to a level consistent with imperial obligations presented a formidable problem. The British Government admittedly had no good option available to it; however, Chamberlain was prepared to endure the humiliating consequences of appeasement, even if it meant peace at any price. He did so for personal, political, and prejudicial reasons. Ruggiero argues that, without Chamberlain, British rearmament would have taken a new direction, and such action might have prevented World War II. Relying primarily upon the Chamberlain Papers and Cabinet Records, this account details how and why Chamberlain adopted his chosen course of action, even after all support for his policies fell away as a result of the Munich Crisis. Most studies have concentrated directly on Chamberlain's appeasement policy, and this is the only one that analyzes his role in the rearmament program at length. It also sheds new light on appeasement by illustrating the connection between the policy and Britain's attempts to rearm.

Statesmanship and Progressive Reform provides a critical assessment of Herbert Croly's influential account of Abraham Lincoln in his book, The Promise of American Life (1909). As founder and editor of The New Republic, Croly was one of the premier intellectual architects of the American Progressive movement. A defining element of Croly's book was his claim that Progressivism was a continuation of the spirit of Lincoln's political thought. This identification of Progressive politics with the Lincoln legacy became a major component of Progressive and modern liberal political rhetoric, especially among presidents like Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Lyndon Johnson, and most recently, Barack Obama. Croly's account of Lincoln is crucial to his ideology of reform, yet Jividen and Alvis provide a brand-new argument that this praise and analysis of Lincoln is highly problematic. Statesmanship and Progressive Reform shows how Croly's depiction of Lincoln looks almost exclusively at his character or "spirit," rather than his speeches, writings, or deeds - all of which would not have aligned so easily to the principals of Progressivism. Despite his adulation of Lincoln, Croly rejects the first principles of American democracy as Lincoln understood them and arrives at a notion of American statesmanship that sharply departs from that of his seemingly ideal statesman.