The speech, that was within hours, already being hailed as one of the most 'commanding' preformances by any US President, let alone a new US President. Includes the full text of the Speech PLUS Governor Jindal's Republican response.

Chronicling the highly partisan and polarized environment during the historic first term of President Barack Obama, Congress and the Nation 2009-2012 Volume XIII is the most authoritative reference on congressional law-making and trends during the 111th and 112th Congresses. The newest edition in this award-winning series documents the most fiercely debated issues during this period, including: Stimulus spending in the wake of financial crisis The controversial reform of the U.S. healthcare system Showdowns over raising the national debt ceiling Extensions of tax cuts and unemployment compensation Confirmation of two new female members of the U.S. Supreme Court Overhaul of financial industry regulations Repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law banning openly gay armed forces personnel from military service This acclaimed resource also covers the shift in partisan control of the U.S. House after the 2010 midterm election and the subsequent gridlock for lawmaking in the 112th Congress. Organized by policy area, each chapter summarizes the legislative activity, including a chronology and legislative history of the bills passed and the major provisions of the final laws. No other source guides readers seamlessly through the policy output of the national legislature with the breadth, depth, and authority of Congress and the Nation. This must-have reference for all academic libraries meets the needs of the full spectrum of users, from lower-level undergraduates through researchers and faculty.

Discover how rivalling discourses of American grand strategy reveal a fractured consensus of geopolitical identity and national security under President Obama. This conflict manifested in divergent elite visions of liberal hegemony, cooperative engagement and unilateral restraint. Georg Lfflmann examines the identity conflict within the Washington foreign policy establishment, between elite insiders and outsiders, and how the 'Obama Doctrine' both confirmed a geopolitical vision of American exceptionalism and challenged established notions of US hegemony and world leadership.

"Having watched from a front row seat as many incumbent and electoral campaign presidential teams managed administration transitions, Martha Kumar was struck by how productively the Bush and Obama teams worked together to effect a smooth transition of power in 2008. She has reflected upon what made the transition so effective, and wonders if it could be a model for future incoming and outgoing administrations. This book focuses on the preparations made by President Bush's transition team as well as those by Senators Obama and McCain as one administration exited and the other entered the White House. Using this recent transition as a lens through which to examine the presidential transition process, Kumar simultaneously outlines the congressional legislation that paved the way for this distinctive transition and interweaves comparative examples from previous administrative transitions going back to Truman-to-Eisenhower. She evaluates the early and continuing actions by the General Services Administration to plan and set up transition offices; the work on financial disclosure issues handled by the Office of Government Ethics; and the Office of Management and Budget's preparatory work. In this fascinating historical and contemporary vivisection of presidential transitions, Kumar maps out, in the words of former NSA advisor General James L. Jones, the characteristics of a smooth "glide path" for presidential campaign staffs and their administrations"--

As new presidential administrations come into power, they each bring their own approach to foreign policy. No grand strategy, however, is going to be completely novel. New administrations never start with a blank slate, so it is always possible to see similarities between an administration and its predecessors. Conversely, since each administration faces novel problems and operates in a unique context, no foreign policy strategy is going to be an exact replica of its predecessors. In American Pendulum, Christopher Hemmer examines America's grand strategic choices between 1914 and 2014 using four recurring debates in American foreign policy as lenses. First, how should the United States balance the trade-offs between working alone versus working with other states and international organizations? Second, what is the proper place of American values in foreign policy? Third, where does the strategic perimeter of the United States lie? And fourth, is time on the side of the United States or of its enemies?Offering new readings of debates within the Wilson, Truman, Nixon, Bush, and Obama administrations, Hemmer asserts that heated debates, disagreements, and even confusions over U.S. grand strategy are not only normal but also beneficial. He challenges the claim that uncertainties or inconsistences about the nation's role in the world or approach to security issues betray strategic confusion or the absence of a grand strategy. American foreign policy, he states, is most in danger not when debates are at their most pointed but when the weight of opinion crushes dissent. As the United States looks ahead to an increasingly multipolar world with increasing complicated security issues, Hemmer concludes, developing an effective grand strategy requires ongoing contestation and compromises between competing visions and policies.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.