Barack Obama, the first African-American president of the United States. In a country with a rich history of racial animosities, Obama represents a notable deviation in the trajectory of America’s presidential history. At the close of his second term in office, a survey of the personalities and events associated with his presidency is fitting. In this walk through recent history we will be keen to point out the president’s successes, failures, and challenges. Governing in a society ripe with ideological and partisan polarization, the Obama Administration was surrounded by controversy, much of it manufactured by his opponents but salient nonetheless. This volume will attempt to provide perspective and clarity on the most important individuals and experiences connected to Obama during his eight years in office, but also his early life. Information included in this volume also includes discussion of his transition out of office and events taking place at the beginning of the Donald Trump Administration. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of the Barack Obama Administration contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, including the president, his advisors, his family, his opponents, and his critics, as well as members of Congress, military leaders, and international leaders. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Barack Obama.

The U.S. Congress can be traced to the founding and the debates in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787, but to suggest that the Congress in the first decade of the 21st century is the same Congress that was created over 220 years ago would be wildly misleading. The entries in this volume will elaborate on the original compromises and the ensuing evolution of legislative practice and review how Congress has developed through several distinctive eras. This second edition of Historical Dictionary the U.S. Congress contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 500 cross-referenced entries on the key concepts, terms, labels, and individuals central to identifying and comprehending the key role Congress plays in the history of the U.S. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the U.S. Congress.

This book covers the development of the presidential office within the context of constitutional interpretations of presidential power and socio-political and economic developments, as well as foreign affairs events, from 1789-2015. It provides details on the men who have held the office, and biographies of vice presidents, unsuccessful candidates for the office, and noteworthy Supreme Court and other appointees. TheHistorical Dictionary of the U.S. Presidency contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on the development of the institution of the presidency, and details the personalities, domestic and foreign policy governing contexts, elections, party dynamics and significant events that have shaped the office from the Founding to the present day. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the U.S. Presidency.

From the vantage point of the 2016 presidential election and the deepening polarization of American politics in recent decades, it is striking how much more distant the Reagan-Bush era of the 1980s and early 1990s seems compared to the years that have actually passed. Whither the Republican Party of yesteryear? Like reincarnated characters from Samuel Beckett’s classic play Waiting for Godot, many disillusioned conservatives in the new millennium continue to search obdurately and in vain for a leader who embodies the acclaimed leadership traits of Ronald Reagan. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of the Reagan-Bush Era contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, events, institutions, policies, and issues. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about this era.

The evolution of the United States from a late-18th century coalition of rebel British colonies to a 21st century global superpower was shaped by several forces. As the nation expanded its boundaries after the Treaty of Paris confirmed independence from Great Britain in 1783, it acquired a rich variety of resources – coal, fertile soils, forests, iron ore, oil, precious metals, space, and varied climates as well as extensive tracts of territory. Technological innovations, such as the cotton gin and steam power, enabled entrepreneurs to exploit those resources and create wealth. Federal and state legislators provided environments in which the economy could flourish, and military strategists kept the country safe from external attack. Diplomats negotiated commercial agreements with foreign governments and cultivated multinational alliances that strengthened freedoms. Through its focus on the people and places that shaped the country’s economic and political development and its detailed accounts of the processes that enabled the U.S. to expand across the continent Historical Dictionary of the United States contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 400 cross-referenced entries on important personalities as well as aspects of the country’s politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the United States.

For over two centuries, political parties have competed in encouraging, organizing, and directing political activity in the United States. This volume compiles the key concepts, terms, labels, and individuals central to identifying and comprehending these key roles political parties have played in American political life. The dictionary contains brief biographies of party leaders: major party presidential tickets; noteworthy minor party presidential nominees; congressional party leaders, including Speakers of the House of Representatives presidents pro tempore of the Senate, and floor leaders for both the majority and minority parties in each chamber; and chairs of the national party committees of the Democratic and Republican Parties. In addition to party leaders it also address the institutional offices they occupy and represent. This third edition of Historical Dictionary of United States Political Parties contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 500 cross-referenced entries on concepts, terms, labels, and individuals central to identifying and comprehending the key roles political parties have played in American political life. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about United States Political Parties.

William Jefferson Clinton’s legacy remains a matter of significant contention among historians, political scientists, and pundits even after a decade of time to reflect. The narrative of Clinton’s two terms may be, in some sense, the tale of two different men—or at least two incongruous public views of the nation’s 42nd chief executive. On the one hand, there is the Clinton who left the White House more popular than when he took office—entering with a 58 percent approval rating and leaving with a 66 percent approval rating. On the other hand, an ABC News poll conducted on his last day showed that 67 percent of Americans said Clinton was not honest and trustworthy. The Historical Dictionary of the Clinton Era covers both sides of the Clinton presidency through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, including the president, his advisors, his family, his opponents, and his critics, as well as members of Congress, military leaders, and international leaders. This book is a vital access point for students, researchers, and anyone interested in the presidency of Bill Clinton.

"Barack Obama's election as the first African American president seemed to usher in a new era, and he took office in 2009 with great expectations. But by his second term, Republicans controlled Congress, and, after the 2016 presidential election, Obama's legacy and the health of the Democratic Party itself appeared in doubt. In The Presidency of Barack Obama, Julian Zelizer gathers leading American historians to put President Obama and his administration into political and historical context. These writers offer strikingly original assessments of the big issues that shaped the Obama years, including the conservative backlash, race, the financial crisis, health care, crime, drugs, counterterrorism, Iraq and Afghanistan, the environment, immigration, education, gay rights, and urban policy. Together, these essays suggest that Obama's central paradox is that, despite effective policymaking, he failed to receive credit for his many achievements and wasn't a party builder. Provocatively, they ask why Obama didn't unite Democrats and progressive activists to fight the conservative counter-tide as it grew stronger." -- Publisher's description

By the time of Barack Obama's inauguration as the 44th president of the United States, he had already developed an ambitious foreign policy vision. By his own account, he sought to bend the arc of history toward greater justice, freedom, and peace; within a year he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, largely for that promise. In Bending History, Martin Indyk, Kenneth Lieberthal, and Michael O’Hanlon measure Obama not only against the record of his predecessors and the immediate challenges of the day, but also against his own soaring rhetoric and inspiring goals. Bending History assesses the considerable accomplishments as well as the failures and seeks to explain what has happened. Obama's best work has been on major and pressing foreign policy challenges—counterterrorism policy, including the daring raid that eliminated Osama bin Laden; the "reset" with Russia; managing the increasingly significant relationship with China; and handling the rogue states of Iran and North Korea. Policy on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, however, has reflected serious flaws in both strategy and execution. Afghanistan policy has been plagued by inconsistent messaging and teamwork. On important "softer" security issues—from energy and climate policy to problems in Africa and Mexico—the record is mixed. As for his early aspiration to reshape the international order, according greater roles and responsibilities to rising powers, Obama's efforts have been well-conceived but of limited effectiveness. On issues of secondary importance, Obama has been disciplined in avoiding fruitless disputes (as with Chavez in Venezuela and Castro in Cuba) and insisting that others take the lead (as with Qaddafi in Libya). Notwithstanding several missteps, he has generally managed well the complex challenges of the Arab awakenings, striving to strike the right balance between U.S. values and interests. The authors see Obama's foreign policy to date as a triumph of discipline and realism over ideology. He has been neither the transformative beacon his devotees have wanted, nor the weak apologist for America that his critics allege. They conclude that his grand strategy for promoting American interests in a tumultuous world may only now be emerging, and may yet be curtailed by conflict with Iran. Most of all, they argue that he or his successor will have to embrace U.S. economic renewal as the core foreign policy and national security challenge of the future.

The Historical Dictionary of Inter-American Organizations covers the changing world of inter-American and international organizations that have played an important role in bilateral and multilateral efforts to solve a wide range of problems that have confronted the nations of the Western Hemisphere. The Latin American region is clearly more integrated regionally and internationally than in previous decades and is better prepared to confront a broad range of problems—trade, development, illicit drugs, terrorism and guerrilla activity, health, environment, democratization, trade, human rights, intervention, electoral assistance, peacekeeping and conflict resolutions, migration, border conflicts, corruption, and energy independence—that governments and non-governmental organizations face in the 21st century. The role of the United States in Latin America has clearly faded since the end of the Cold War and the second edition of this book fills a large void in explaining the complexities of inter-American organizations and their activities since the first edition was completed in the late 1990s. This updated second edition of Historical Dictionary of Inter-American Organizations covers the history of through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 400 hundred cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Inter-American Organizations.