As the central feature of the American political landscape, it is only natural that scholars and commentators focus on the presidency. So much is written about the subject, in fact, that it is often difficult to know where we stand in our understanding of it. The Oxford Handbook of the American Presidency will help scholars assess the state of scholarship on the presidency and the directions in which it needs to move. Never before has the academic literature on the American presidency received such an extended treatment. Nearly three dozen chapters critically assess both the major contributions to the literature on the dimension of the presidency and the ways in which the literature has developed. The authors of each chapter seek to identify weaknesses in the existing literature--be they logical flaws, methodological errors, oversights, or some combination therein--and to offer their views about especially productive lines of future inquiry. Equally important, the authors also identify areas of research that are unlikely to bear additional fruit. These chapters offer a distinctive point of view, an argument about the successes and failures of past scholarship, and a set of recommendations about how future work ought to develop. Thus, this volume will help set the agenda for research on the presidency for the next decade. - Publisher.