Books

Books by Gil Troy

• Hillary Rodham Clinton : Polarizing First Lady (University of Kansas Press, October 2006)

• Morning in America: How Ronald Reagan Invented the 1980’s (Princeton University Press, March 2005)

• Mr. and Mrs. President: From the Trumans to the Clintons–Second Edition, Revised (University Press of Kansas, April 2000)

• See How They Ran: The Changing Role of the Presidential Candidate, Revised and Explanded Edition (Harvard University Press, 1996, Out of Print)

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Hillary Rodham Clinton : Polarizing First Lady (University of Kansas Press, October 2006)

 

For most first ladies, their years in the White House are their sole claim to fame. For one—Hillary Rodham Clinton—that tenure was just another step in a remarkable political career. Neither a “hit job” nor a facile tribute, Gil Troy’s lively and refreshingly nonsensational new book provides a revealing look at arguably the most polarizing first lady in history and undoubtedly the most prominent American woman of our time.

Troy, named by History News Network as one of America’s Top 15 Young Historians, measures Clinton’s historical footprint, tracing her activities during the turbulent decade that brought her to national prominence and examining her influence as a key player in her husband’s administration. Covering her attempts to overhaul health care and redefine the first lady as co-president while she tried to cope with her husband’s scandals and impeachment, he recounts how Hillary’s rocky road had a mixed impact on the office, even as her ambitions illuminated the role’s potential.

 

As the first feminist first lady, Hillary Clinton faced dilemmas typical of modern American women as she tried to be both a family-oriented, devoted wife and a career-focused, independent woman. Troy shows how she did her best to navigate this divide and breaks new ground in taking her seriously as a thinker. Delving into Hillary’s speeches and writings, he uncovers a surprisingly more moderate, even conservative worldview. In fact, he finds some of her positions—such as her outspoken views on abortion—to be authentic expressions of a genuine Puritan/Methodist centrism rather than a mere political ploy.

 

Offering a mix of praise and censure that elevates to a more sophisticated level debates about her controversial career and presidential aspirations, Troy’s book will enlighten and intrigue Hillary’s passionate critics and staunch defenders alike. It will renew discussions of where she stands in the continuum of modern first ladies-and of where history will ultimately take her. Many of the book’s key themes are effectively underscored by an entertainingly narrated photo essay, with provocative images drawn from the Clinton Presidential Library.

 

Morning in America: How Ronald Reagan Invented the 1980’s (Princeton University Press, March 2005)

 

Did America’s fortieth president lead a conservative counterrevolution that left liberalism gasping for air? The answer, for both his admirers and his detractors, is often “yes.” In Morning in America, Gil Troy argues that the Great Communicator was also the Great Conciliator. His pioneering and lively reassessment of Ronald Reagan’s legacy takes us through the 1980s in ten year-by-year chapters, integrating the story of the Reagan presidency with stories of the decade’s cultural icons and watershed moments-from personalities to popular television shows.

 

One such watershed moment was the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. With the trauma of Vietnam fading, the triumph of America’s 1983 invasion of tiny Grenada still fresh, and a reviving economy, Americans geared up for a festival of international harmony that-spurred on by an entertainment-focused news media, corporate sponsors, and the President himself-became a celebration of the good old U.S.A. At the Games’ opening, Reagan presided over a thousand-voice choir, a 750-member marching band, and a 90,000-strong teary-eyed audience singing “America the Beautiful!” while waving thousands of flags.

 

Reagan emerges more as happy warrior than angry ideologue, as a big-picture man better at setting America’s mood than implementing his program. With a vigorous Democratic opposition, Reagan’s own affability, and other limiting factors, the eighties were less counterrevolutionary than many believe. Many sixties’ innovations went mainstream, from civil rights to feminism. Reagan fostered a political culture centered on individualism and consumption-finding common ground between the right and the left.

Written with verve, Morning in America is both a major new look at one of America’s most influential modern-day presidents and the definitive story of a decade that continues to shape our times.

 

Mr. and Mrs. President: From the Trumans to the Clintons–Second Edition, Revised (University Press of Kansas, April 2000)

It began with Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt. It accelerated with Hack and Jackie Kennedy. Lady Bird and Lyndon Johnson became partners in office and Nancy and Ronnie seemed joined at the hip. Without question, the presidential couple has arrived as a force in politics. Yet surprisingly, the electorate is not happy about it.

The emergence of the presidential couple is one of the most important and contentious developments in America’s postwar political history. Its citizens’ reaction to the First Couple reflects the country’s changing morality, its uncertain attitude toward feminism, and the increasing power of the media. Gil Troy traces these shifts through ten presidential marriages, from the homesick tensions between Harry and Bess Truman to the very public scandals endured by Bill and Hillary Clinton. Along the way, readers learn of Mamie Eisenhower’s perseverance on her husband’s campaign trail, Gerald Ford’s embarrassment over Betty’s outspoken honesty, and the amazing political success of Nancy and Ronald Reagan’s partnership in office. With a new chapter devoted to Hillary and Bill Clinton’s tainted partnership in office and to our present First Lady’s senatorial ambitions, this edition of Gil Troy’s Mr. and Mrs. President offers fresh insights into America’s paradoxical expectations for its presidential wives and husbands.

Affairs of State: The Rise and Rejection of the Presidential Couple since World War II (Free Press, January 1997)

 

The emergence of the presidential couple is one of the most important and contentious developments in America’s postwar political history. After the exceptional Roosevelts, the change began innocently enough, with Mamie becoming the first First Lady to remain on the campaign trail without her husband – receiving nothing but praise as a result. By the 1960s, with Lady Bird lobbying for legislation on TV, the first signs of protest appeared. In the 1970s, when Jerry and Betty Ford increased East Wing staffing and press coverage, the idea of the presidential couple was institutionalized, but Betty became so controversial she may have cost Jerry his chances for election. With Hillary Clinton, the backlash can no longer be denied. Though Bill announced during his first campaign that the country would be getting “two for the price of one,” by his second he and Hillary appeared to have learned a painful lesson. She had morphed into Nancy Reagan, speaking out for children’s issues, loyally supporting her husband, and denying any interest or role in policymaking. As Gil Troy points out, the most successful recent couple has been the Bushes, who modeled themselves after an older generation. The lesson is clear: First Ladies can be far more helpful than ever before with image-making, but not with substantive legislative or managerial functions. The country does not want an un-impeachable, un-removable partner to take a politically active role.

 

See How They Ran: The Changing Role of the Presidential Candidate, Revised and Explanded Edition (Harvard University Press, 1996, Out of Print)

McGill University history professor Troy offers an original, fascinating and admirably focused account of American presidential campaigns from George Washington to George Bush. The author sees the evolution of campaigns as an attempt to balance the contradictions of republican and democratic principles inherent in our government since the nation was founded: “The president was to be both king and prime minister, a national figurehead and the people’s representative.” Up to and including the candidacy of Andrew Jackson–whose election is said to have signaled the triumph of popular democracy–candidates “stood” for rather than “ran” for office. In 1880 James Garfield’s single brief trip from his native Ohio to New York introduced “stumping,” which figured prominently in William Jennings Bryant’s 1896 campaign. In Troy’s view, Theodore Roosevelt was first to manipulate the press; Franklin Roosevelt used the radio to greatest advantage; and Dwight Eisenhower’s aides made TV a potent weapon. Troy does not adopt the common view that the presidential election process has degenerated; instead he sees merely a shift in emphasis. — From Publishers WeeklyTroy’s scholarship successfully demonstrates that Americans have a long tradition of frustration with presidential campaigns. He shatters the mythic notion that campaigns in the “good old days” were dignified contests waged by scrupulously worthy candidates. Thoroughly authoritative, his study is not meant to supplant Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Fred Israel’s comprehensive standard, Histo ry of American Presidential Elections, 1789-1968 ( LJ 9/15/71); rather it relates in colorful and personal detail the conduct of presidential candidates since 1840 in their struggle to meet the sometimes whimsical, often conflicting expectations of the electorate. A unique acquisition for collections emphasizing politics and government and essential reading for followers of political contests. — Susan E. Parker, Harvard Law Sch. Lib., From Library Journal.