Placing an ideal of participatory democracy against the notion of democratic realism, Miroff (political science, State U. of New York) looks at the leadership styles of John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Eugene Victor Debs, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Jr., and John F. Kennedy. His argument is perhaps best symbolized by his critical/sympathetic treatment of socialist Debs who, he feels, articulated the grandest vision of American democratic ideals, yet failed to engage in the political battles necessary to achieve his goals. In contrast, the chapters on the "neo-Hamiltonians" (Kennedy and the Roosevelts) reveal their styles as essentially aristocratic. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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"In an era when American leadership seems sunk in petty power struggles and shallow media spectacles, some of our icons have much to teach us about the forms of leadership that can still speak to the democratic possibilities of the American people," writes Bruce Miroff. In <i>Icons of Democracy</i>, Miroff looks at how nine American leaders have either successfully encouraged or undermined citizens' participatory role in their democracy and helps us rediscover what leadership has meant in the past and how it can reinvigorate public life today.<br><br>In a blend of history, biography, political science, and political theory, Miroff offers examples of the finest democratic leadership as well as cautionary tales of prominent leaders whose styles were essentially aristocratic. His study examines John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Eugene V. Debs, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King, Jr., as leaders who embodied or advanced democratic ideals. He also presents iconoclastic analyses of Alexander Hamilton, Theodore Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy, in which he concludes that these leaders actually discouraged a truly participatory democracy. In addition, in a new preface to this edition he criticizes Bill Clinton as a postmodern leader more concerned with political fashion than democratic vision.<br><br>
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