Power and the People: Executive Management of Public Opinion in Foreign Affairs, 1897-1921

Hilderbrand traces the use of presidential power to influence popular attitudes under four presidents — McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson — and emphasizes the efforts of policymakers to manage public opinion that supposedly influenced decisions in foreign policy. He shows that the executive is considerably freer to make foreign policy than historians have previously supposed and that power belongs to the presidents, not to the people.

Originally published in 1981.

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