Summary

Praise for the previous edition:

"...accessible...this book is an excellent addition to collections serving general readers, high schools, and undergraduates."—American Reference Books Annual

"This readable volume is recommended for high-school, public, and undergraduate libraries..."—Booklist

"...[an] outstanding reference tool...Biographical dictionaries abound, in political science as in other fields...[but] Wilson's work is more accessible, benefitting from his straightforward approach and simpler organization...Highly recommended."—Choice

"Recommended."—Library Media Connection

"...an authoritative and readable guide...serves as a helpful resource for high school, college, and public libraries..."—Christian Library Journal

American Political Leaders, Second Edition contains 275 biographical profiles of men and women in the United States who have demonstrated their political leadership primarily by being elected, nominated, or appointed to significant political offices in the United States or by having attained some special prominence associated with political leadership. This reference work provides students and general readers with a concise, readable guide to present and past leaders in U.S. politics.

Included in this book are presidents, vice presidents, major party candidates for president, significant third-party candidates, important Supreme Court justices, Speakers of the U.S. House of Representatives, senators, representatives, cabinet officers, significant agency heads, and diplomats. Since much of U.S. political leadership involves the representation of successive waves of new groups within the U.S. political system, special care has been taken to include the contributions of women, Native Americans, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, and Americans who represented earlier waves of immigrants to the United States.

Profiles include:

• John Adams: president, vice president, diplomat, Revolutionary leader, author
• Madeleine Korbell Albright: secretary of state, ambassador to the United Nations
• Jerry Brown: mayor, state attorney general, governor
• Jefferson Davis: secretary of war, senator, representative, president of the Confederate States of America
• Geraldine Ferraro: candidate for vice president, representative, author
• Neil Gorsuch: associate justice of the Supreme Court
• Daniel Ken Inouye: senator
• Barack Obama: senator, president
• Sonia Sotomayor: associate justice of the Supreme Court
• Elizabeth Warren: senator
• Janet Yellen: chair of the Federal Reserve Board. 

Specifications

eBook

About the Author(s)

Richard L. Wilson is a professor of political science, academically trained in both American history and government. He has taught history and political science to undergraduates and graduate students for thirty years in five major institutions, including as a Fulbright lecturer abroad. He coedited The Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court. Previously, he was a consulting editor for Ready Reference: Censorship, which received the Outstanding Adult Reference Source Award for 1998. He has contributed dozens of articles for reference books published by Salem Press, M.E. Sharpe, Marshall Cavendish, and Sage Publications. An active scholar, he has published dozens of journal articles and professional papers as well as American government and Tennessee state government texts.

Alison D. Howard currently teaches courses on the presidency, Congress, and campaigns and elections at Dominican University of California. She received her M.A. degree in political science from the University of Oklahoma. Her research focuses on presidential rhetoric, specifically the State of the Union Address. She is the co-author of Addressing the State of the Union: The Evolution and Impact of the President's Big Speech and has published articles in PS: Political Science and Politics, American Behavioral Science, Journal of Political Science Education, Social Science Quarterly, and Perspectives on Political Science.