The Presidents and the People

Five presidents who tried to break democracy. The Presidents and the People by constitutional law and political science professor Corey Brettschneider is a propulsive, eminently readable account of the American presidents who assaulted democratic norms — and the citizens who fought back.

The book traces the pattern across the historical record: John Adams waging war on the national press through prosecutions of his critics; James Buchanan colluding with the Supreme Court in the lead-up to the Civil War to deny constitutional personhood to African Americans; Andrew Johnson urging violence against his political opponents in pursuit of a white supremacist republic. Thoroughly researched and urgently timely, it's essential reading for understanding how American democracy has been threatened before — and how it has survived.

The republic is fragile — and worth defending.