Amazon.com Review
The media attention and political influence garnered by first ladies is a distinctive quality of the modern presidency. It follows, therefore, that scholars of the American presidency increasingly direct attention to the role the first family plays in contemporary politics. One point made emphatically clear by Gil Troy's book Affairs of State is that the heightened role of the first lady is not a creation of the Clinton presidency. Troy traces the history of first families from Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt to Bill and Hillary, with the Nixon presidency shaping up as an important juncture in the creation of the modern image of the White House family. He depicts the immense influence the press corps has over public opinion about the first family--a role they gained through politicians' attempts to leverage their families for favorable media coverage. Having sketched the rules of the image game as played by the press and the presidency, Troy gives sage advice: follow the conventions and don't risk offending the impossible expectations placed on the first family. To do otherwise is to risk negative press coverage and the disapproval of middle America.
From Publishers Weekly
This overview of post-WWII U.S. presidential couples by Troy, a history teacher at Canada's McGill University, is deeply engrossing. He claims the book "is about image... insofar as the First Couples have sought to fulfill America's unrealistic standards for the presidency," and about substance as "a story of increasing First Lady involvement in politics, and voters' rejection of that involvement." According to Troy, the wives of presidents who followed Eleanor Roosevelt were scrutinized as half of a political partnership and expected to develop an appropriate public persona. Drawing on extensive research, Troy examines each partnership and evaluates whether the marriage helped the presidency. Truman's emotional dependence on Bess, who disliked politics, distracted him, while Mamie Eisenhower and Barbara Bush filled supportive roles. According to Troy, the presidencies of Ford, Carter and Clinton were impacted negatively by the public's perception of their wives as wielding too much power. In his otherwise absorbing history, the author's advice for first couples, that wives be deferential, is reminiscent of 1950s' women's magazines. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
