What Jefferson Read, Ike Watched, and Obama Tweeted: 200 Years of Popular Culture in the White House

by Tevi Troy

Overview

From Cicero to Snooki, the cultural influences on our American presidents are powerful and plentiful. Thomas Jefferson famously said "I cannot live without books," and his library backed up the claim, later becoming the backbone of the new Library of Congress. Jimmy Carter watched hundreds of movies in his White House, while Ronald Reagan starred in a few in his own time. Lincoln was a theater-goer, while Obama kicked back at home to a few episodes of HBO's "The Wire."

America is a country built by thinkers on a foundation of ideas. Alongside classic works of philosophy and ethics, however, our presidents have been influenced by the books, movies, TV shows, viral videos, and social media sensations of their day. In What Jefferson Read, Ike Watched, and Obama Tweeted: 200 Years of Popular Culturen in the White House presidential scholar and former White House aide Tevi Troy combines research with witty observation to tell the story of how our presidents have been shaped by popular culture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781621570578
Publisher:	Skyhorse Publishing
Publication date:	09/02/2013
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	416
File size:	710 KB

About the Author

The list of Regnery authors reads like a "who's who" of conservative thought, action, and history.

Table of Contents

Introduction: From Cicero to Snooki: How Culture Shapes Our Presidents xi

Chapter 1 The Founders: Reading for Wisdom and Virtue 1

Chapter 2 Theater and the Common Man in the Nineteenth Century 15

Chapter 3 Lincoln: Reading as a Tool for Advancement 33

Chapter 4 Theodore Roosevelt: Culture and Destiny 49

Chapter 5 Reflected Glory 65

Chapter 6 FDR: President as Cultural Output 77

Chapter 7 Music and the Quest for Cool 89

Chapter 8 All the Presidents' Movies: Finding Archetypal Leadership in Film 117

Chapter 9 The "Vast Wasteland": Presidents and Television 139

Chapter 10 Reading and the Modern President 181

Chapter 11 Obama, Full-Fledged Product of American Pop Culture 211

Conclusion 241

Appendix: Rules for Presidents Engaging Pop Culture 245

Acknowledgments 251

Notes 255

Index 309

Editorial Reviews

In 2010, Obama delivered a joke about Jersey Shore reality star Snooki, but later admitted on The View that he didn’t know who she was; the typically pop culture–literate POTUS’s gaffe belied the White House’s struggle to maintain the dignity of the high office while simultaneously participating with the public in the consumption of culture. Troy (Intellectuals and the American Presidency), a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute think tank, admiringly details the exemplary reading habits of the nation’s early presidents before tracking the slow but steady sidelining of the pastime. Teddy Roosevelt (who once declared, “Reading with me is a disease”) would be “the last reading president,” after which radio, music, film, TV, and the Internet fragmented the media landscape and the attentions of the American public—and the president. Troy’s casual history comes in easily digestible bites, and though his loyalty to former boss George W. Bush (under whom he served as the deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services) clouds his analysis of the current and previous president, this is nevertheless an informative look at how these American leaders embraced and transformed popular culture and the ever-evolving office of the presidency. Agent: Gene Brissie, James Peter Associates. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

From reading Cicero to watching I Love Lucy, a history of American presidents' interactions with popular culture. Can a president show that he has the gravitas to govern the nation and still reveal that he knows who Snooki is? The question animates this fresh view of presidents from George Washington to Barack Obama and their efforts to find the right distance for the leader of a republic to keep between himself and the people. Against the rise of American popular culture over the past 200 years, Hudson Institute senior fellow Troy (Intellectuals and the American Presidency: Philosophers, Jesters, or Technicians?, 2002) shows how presidents' cultural pursuits have shaped them and the nation. The pursuits are many: Jefferson read the classics and philosophical works ("From candlelight to early bedtime I read"), as did John Adams, in an era when Common Sense sold as briskly as Peyton Place; Andrew Jackson thrilled audiences on his visits to the theater; Franklin Roosevelt mastered the radio; and Reagan made expert use of TV, which he also enjoyed viewing for consolation. While Theodore Roosevelt and Lincoln worked hard to balance book smarts and popular appeal, presidents had other cultural distractions to deal with in ensuing years, which brought the Montgomery Ward catalog, the phonograph, radio, TV (Clinton was a "savvy manipulator," George W. Bush rarely watched), and the Internet. Troy shows how these leaders used and projected their own images through emerging media, from Nixon sizing up the competition on TV to Obama's preference for dark and edgy TV shows like The Wire. He wonders how the U.S. will continue to produce good leaders in a culture of the outrageous and the vulgar. Light, entertaining and informative.

Kirkus Reviews