Reconsidering Roosevelt on Race: How the Presidency Paved the Road to Brown - Softcover

Winner of the 2005 Richard E. Neustadt Book Award for the best book on the Presidency "An important contribution to legal history."-Choice "[McMahon] presents a wealth of information demonstrating that Roosevelt''s record of judicial and executive appointments as well as his policy initiatives were instrumental in creating the political climate from which the Brown decision emerged." "Thoughtful and meticulously researched . . . This work makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the political climate and reality of the New Deal era as well as informing our explanations of judicial policy and the rise of the modern civil rights movement."-Law and Politics Book Review "McMahon successfully employs a presidency-centered focus to link elected officials and judicial activism on behalf of the powerless. McMahon maintains that "Brown v. Board of Education" was as rooted in decisions made by the Roosevelt Administration as in the litigation campaign against segregated schools."--Mark A, Graber "AR Reviews in Advance " "An outstanding work of scholarship. It is imaginative in its ideas, rigorous in its argumentation, thorough in its research, and articulate in its prose. It is a book that will be valuable to anyone interested in the history of civil rights or the evolution of the presidency."--Timothy Walch "The Historian " "McMahon successfully employs a presidency-centered focus to link elected officials and judicial activism on behalf of the powerless. McMahon maintains that "Brown v. Board of Education" was as rooted in decisions made by the Roosevelt Administration as in the litigation campaign against segregated schools."--Mark A, Graber "AR Reviews in Advance " "McMahon''s compelling and provocative book aggressively interrogates the conventional wisdom on Franklin Delano Roosevelt''s civil rights legacy. . . . The book dissects Rooseveltian hagiography, revealing a profoundly nuanced causal chain connecting the failure of the first New Deal to the Warren Court''s landmark decision in "Brown v. Board of Education"."--Benjamin Ponder "Rhetoric & Public Affairs " "The book is excellent, meticulously researched, lucid, intellectually combative yet engaging and broadly persuasive. It is approachable enough to be perfectly readable for undergraduates but difficult enough that it should have substantial impact on how scholars think of the Presidency's relation to the Court."--Paul Martin "Ethnic and Racial Studies " "McMahon's compelling and provocative book aggressively interrogates the conventional wisdom on Franklin Delano Roosevelt's civil rights legacy. . . . The book dissects Rooseveltian hagiography, revealing a profoundly nuanced causal chain connecting the failure of the first New Deal to the Warren Court's landmark decision in "Brown v. Board of Education.""--Benjamin Ponder "Rhetoric & Public Affairs " McMahon successfully employs a presidency-centered focus to link elected officials and judicial activism on behalf of the powerless. McMahon maintains that "Brown v. Board of Education" was as rooted in decisions made by the Roosevelt Administration as in the litigation campaign against segregated schools. --Mark A, Graber "AR Reviews in Advance "" "[McMahon] argues that Roosevelt worked to advance the civil rights cause through the two institutionalmeans he had at his disposal in the face of entrenched segregationist power in Congress. These were the presidency itself, which FDR consistently sought to strengthen at Congress's expense, and his executive ability to nominate judges to the federal bench. McMahon's treatment of both is skillful, as he adds innovative use of evidence to theoretical tools developed in political science." --Gerard Alexander"Virginia Quarterly Review" (06/01/2004)" "An important contribution to legal history."--"Choice" "An important contribution to legal history."-"Choice"