Commander in Chief Audiobook By Casey B. K. Dominguez cover art

Commander in Chief

Partisanship, Nationalism, and the Reconstruction of Congressional War Powers

Preview

Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Commander in Chief

By: Casey B. K. Dominguez
Narrated by: Nancy Peterson
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $17.49

Buy for $17.49

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

The constitutional balance of war powers has shifted from Congress to the president over time. Today, presidents broadly define their constitutional authority as commander in chief. In the nineteenth century, however, Congress was the institution that claimed and defended expansive war powers authority. This discrepancy raises important questions: How, specifically, did Congress define the boundaries between presidential and congressional war powers in the early republic? Did that definition change?

Casey Dominguez's Commander in Chief systematically analyzes the authority that members of Congress ascribe to the president as commander in chief and the boundaries they put around that authority.

Dominguez shows that for more than a century members of Congress defined the commander in chief's authority narrowly. But in a wave of nationalism during the Spanish-American War, members of Congress began to argue that Congress owed deference to the commander in chief. They also tended to argue that a president of their own party should have broad war powers, while the powers of a president in the other party should be defined narrowly. Together, these two dynamics suggest that the conditions for presidentially dominated modern constitutional war powers were set at the turn of the twentieth century, far earlier than is often acknowledged.

©2024 the University Press of Kansas (P)2024 Tantor
Military Politics & Government War
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

What listeners say about Commander in Chief

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A fascinating, illuminating, and important book!

Casey Dominguez's important new book provides valuable insights into Congress's historical role in interpreting, circumscribing, and expanding the president's powers as commander in chief. She advances a thought-provoking argument supported by abundant evidence that the Spanish-American War in 1898 was a turning point when it came to war powers and the emergence of the modern presidency. The book offers rich and impressive historical analysis as well as a wealth of insights on the roles that constitutional interpretation, partisanship, and more played in the evolution of congressional views on critical questions of war, peace, and presidential power from the American founding until the start of World War I. The chapter on battlefield emancipation and Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation is particularly fascinating. A terrific book for anyone interested in American constitutional history, the evolving roles of the president and Congress, and the crucially important topic of war powers!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!