Books
Polsky is the author of two books, The Rise of the Therapeutic State and Elusive Victories: The American Presidency at War. He is also the editor of The Eisenhower Presidency: Lessons for the Twenty-First Century.
Elusive Victories: The American Presidency at War
AUTHOR
Oxford University Press, 2012
Praise for
Elusive Victories
“The book is a sobering counterpoint to heroic narratives celebrating martial presidencies and to the scholarly emphasis on how presidential power has expanded with war.”
— Washington Post Book Review
“The logic of victory provides Polsky with a template to analyze the wartime leadership of seven wartime presidents. It also provides the structure of his six chapters and has allowed him to write absolute gems of grand strategic analysis ... Taken as a whole, it is a very impressive grand strategic analysis of six American wars, well worth reading and studying.”
— Perspectives on Politics
“This is a book that will make readers think, that will challenge some of their long-held beliefs about the disposition of power in a free country. At one point Polsky writes that “there is no wartime president’s user’s manual that can serve as a guide - and there certainly isn’t a 24/7 help desk a president can call when a war goes badly.” After savoring the many understated marvels of Elusive Victories, readers might be forgiven for thinking this book is about as close to that user’s manual as any we’re likely to see in the near future. It should be required reading in the Oval Office, among many other similar, though perhaps less culpable, places.”
— Steve Donohue
The Rise of the Therapeutic State
AUTHORPrinceton University Press, 1991
The Rise of the Therapeutic State
Praise for
“Polsky powerfully describes how well-intentioned welfare state programs went awry, with serious, detrimental consequences for the personal autonomy of individuals and their families and the vitality of our political discourse. In so doing, he challenges us to devise new social policies which will sensitively protect and enhance political self-determination and individual freedom.”
— Steven Rathgeb Smith, Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law
“Polsky is irreverent, ironic, and antiorthodox. . . . [He] makes a convincing case for viewing therapeutic activists as sophisticated operators on the power-seeking stage. . . . He raises troublesome questions about the ultimate nature of the therapeutic enterprise, especially about its social control features.”
— Laura Epstein, Social Service Review
“A compelling history of the casework approach to poverty in America.”
— Lawrence M. Mead, Journal of Politics
The Eisenhower Presidency: Lessons for the Twenty-First Century
EDITOR