Presidential performance

About this book

"Presidential rankings emerged in 1948 when Life magazine published an article by the prominent historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr., who had selected 55 experts on the presidency and asked them to rank the presidents. He arranged the results into categories of "Great," "Near Great," "Average," "Below Average" and "Failure," producing a substantial article that attracted wide public attention. His work and similar studies have not escaped criticism, however." "Many general works on the presidency have discussed presidential greatness and identified presidents who stood out for good or ill. Unavoidable inadequacies limit all ranking schemes, regardless of the complicated measures that authors employ in their attempts to be "scientific." This book provides useful criticism of presidential rankings. It is arranged chronologically, and discusses each president's performance and many ranking studies in detail."--BOOK JACKET.