The Eisenhower Presidency : Lessons for the Twenty-First Century / edited by Andrew J. Polsky.

"A Roosevelt House book"--Title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Foreword / Jonathan Fanton -- Foreword / Daniel A. Sharp -- Introduction / Andrew J. Polsky -- Reassessing and reviving Eisenhower's governing style / Kenneth E. Collier -- Leading as a true conservative : Eisenhower, the GOP, and the politics of fiscal responsibility / Geoffrey Kabaservice -- Closing argument : the verdict on Eisenhower and civil rights / David A. Nichols -- The Eisenhower transition : the economics and politics of economic policy / M. Stephen Weatherford -- Pursuing the parallel track / Mark Shanahan -- Sputnik moments : science and technology policy from Eisenhower to Obama / Zuoyue Wang -- Eisenhower's "strategic hand" : developing and executing a foreign policy vision / Meena Bose -- We're not in Kansas anymore : Eisenhower and U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, 1953-1961 / Douglas Little -- Eisenhower and the military / Dale R. Herspring -- Peace dividends : President Eisenhower and the unbuilding of the American national security state / Andrew J. Polsky.

"We are in the midst of a Dwight Eisenhower revival. Certainly, Eisenhower's presidency has much to teach us today about how a president might avert crises and showdowns at home or abroad. But he governed under conditions so strikingly different from those a chief executive faces in the early 21st century that we need to question how much of his style could work in our own era. The chapters in this volume address the lessons we can draw from the Eisenhower experience for presidential leadership today. The authors express varying opinions on how applicable his appracoh would be for our own time. On one side, they appreciate his limited faith in the power of his words to move public opinion and his reluctance to turn to the use of force to solve international problems. On the other side, they doubt that Ike's exercise of "hidden-hand" leadership (in Fred Greenstein's evocative term) would be possible in the modern media environment that makes Washington a giant fishbowl and instant revelation an acceptable norm. Both Eisenhower admirers and skeptics (and many of the authors are both) will find much in these essays to reinforce their preconceptions--and much that is unsettling. Eisenhower emerges as an effective but flawed leader. He was in many ways the right man for his time, but limited because he was also a man of his time"--Publisher's description.