Historian in Chief

This collection of essays is not overtly concerned with presidential memoir, strictly speaking, or even with the rare occasions when presidents write formal history, but rather with presidential historical discourse and the multiple ways chief executives have oriented themselves and the nation within a historical continuum. With both rhetoric—the educative function of the office—and policy, the editors Seth Cotlar and Richard J. Ellis note that presidents “shape not only the course of history but also how Americans remember and recall that history” (p. 1). In other words, they have the power “forge collective memory” (ibid.). Except for George Washington, who, as Edward Countryman notes, had only the future against which to consider his precedent-setting administration, many presidents have been acutely conscious of historical precedents, actively positioning their administrations against their predecessors who often played an outsized role in their decision-making process. For example, John Milton Cooper Jr. describes

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