The author uses the words of the last eighteen presidents to chart the steady accumulation of power in the oval office in the twentieth century--from William McKinley through George W. Bush.

The presidency. Of a republic transformed by kings, courtiers, and warriors -- Accidental presidents and vice presidential heirs apparent -- Let the people speak : no more smoke-filled rooms -- The presidents. To be a king (Theodore Roosevelt) -- The dauphin (William Howard Taft) -- The democratic interloper (Woodrow Wilson) -- Back to normalcy (Warren Harding) -- The great enigma (Calvin Coolidge) -- The engineer (Herbert Hoover) -- The savior (Franklin Roosevelt) -- The creator (Harry Truman) -- The general (Dwight D. Eisenhower) -- The boy wonder (John F. Kennedy) -- The Texan (Lyndon B. Johnson) -- The villain? (Richard Nixon) -- The innocent (Gerald Ford) -- The new Georgia (Jimmy Carter) -- The actor (Ronald Reagan) -- The Connecticut Yankee in disguise (George H.W. Bush) -- The rake's progress (Bill Clinton) -- Reagan's boy (George W. Bush) -- Epilogue -- Appendix : Bryce's and Toqueville's America : a prefiguring of twentieth-century America?.