To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment
To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment book cover

To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment

Hardcover – May 15, 2018

Price
$6.00
Format
Hardcover
Pages
304
Publisher
Basic Books
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-1541644885
Dimensions
6.25 x 1 x 9.5 inches
Weight
1.1 pounds

Description

"Brilliant...In their terrific, accessible, and thoughtful new book, To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment , the Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe and the constitutional lawyer Joshua Matz do better than offering a simple yes or no: they give us a framework for thinking about the question...To their great credit, Tribe and Matz didn't write a legal brief or a political strategy memo. They instead make clear to anyone even contemplating impeachment that the decision to end a presidency isn't simple or straightforward."― Guardian US "A learned, judicious, and surprisingly cautious study of the impeachment power...The clear-eyed and clear-thinking message of To End a Presidency deserves the widest audience. It is an aspirin to cool a political fever, and a hopeful summons to defend an imperiled democracy with a renewed and enlarged commitment to democratic action."― Atlantic "Mr. Tribe and Mr. Matz have written a powerful, clear and even-handed guide to the legal and political aspects of impeachment...[an] enlightening book. It is the definitive treatment of a vital subject and will remain so long after this presidency."― Economist "The most important book on impeachment in decades."― Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post "Right Turn" "With wisdom and lucidity, they explain the origins of impeachment in the U.S. Constitution, exactly how it works, and what criteria should be used in evaluating whether impeachment is called for."― Washington Times "A comprehensive, restrained, and indispensable resource on the powers and limits of impeachment... an eminently comprehensible, thorough legal, historical, and political text, a must-read guide for navigating the choppy and turbulent waters facing President Trump and the country in the days ahead."― Jewish Week "Tribe and Matz provide a fair, balanced, and relevant examination of an often misunderstood function of our national government."― Booklist "Impeachment is a fearsome power. This bracing, restrained, and fiercely judicious account of the process's origins and purpose explains why no U.S. president has ever been removed from office by impeachment, and what it might mean if one were."― Jill Lepore, author of the forthcoming These Truths: A History of the United States "'Impeachment is neither a magic wand nor a doomsday device.' So write Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz in this deeply informed, even-handed look at how a president can be impeached and what the consequences would be. This book is essential reading for anyone who cares about the future of our democracy in the Age of Trump."― Max Boot, senior fellow, Council on Foreign Relations, and bestselling author of The Road Not Taken "Very few books are accessible to a wide audience of lay people and experts, written compellingly and reading easily, while also having depth, insight, and deep scholarship. To End a Presidency is one of the rare ones. Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz have given us a thorough, lively history of presidential impeachment, enriched with strong legal and political analysis, fair-minded and thoughtful without being bland. This is an important, timely, and extraordinarily useful book at a critical time in American politics."― Norman Ornstein, resident scholar, American Enterprise Institute, and bestselling coauthor of One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet-Deported "Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz have produced the single best overview ever written of the impeachment process. At a time when Americans both in the public and in government are hungry for a comprehensive and deep analysis of the subject, they have provided it. It is indispensable for our generation and for future ones to come."― Norman L. Eisen, chair and cofounder, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington "This is a spectacular book. It is essential, riveting reading for anyone trying to make sense of the impeachment question as citizens--or as members of Congress. Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz have a special knack for logical and historical clarity, and To End a Presidency left me not only left me knowing more, but also thinking better."― Zephyr Teachout, author of Corruption in America "This is the definitive book on how to end a national nightmare. No dubious constitutional theories, just real law, real procedures, and real ideas for moving forward. Where Special Counsel Robert Mueller leaves off this book will pick up. The real deal."― Richard W. Painter, S. Walter Richey Professor of Corporate Law, University of Minnesota Law School and chief ethics counsel for President George W. Bush Laurence Tribe is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor and a professor of constitutional law at Harvard. One of America's foremost constitutional scholars, he is the coauthor of Uncertain Justice (with Joshua Matz) and numerous other books and articles. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts. Joshua Matz , a graduate of Harvard Law School and a constitutional lawyer, is the publisher of Take Care , which provides legal analysis of the Trump presidency. He lives in Washington, DC.

Features & Highlights

  • As Congress prepares articles of impeachment of President Trump, read the definitive book on presidential impeachment and how it should be used today.
  • Impeachment is our ultimate constitutional check against an out-of-control executive. But it is also a perilous and traumatic undertaking for the nation. In this authoritative examination, Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz rise above the daily clamor to illuminate impeachment's proper role in our age of broken politics.
  • To End a Presidency
  • is an essential book for anyone seeking to understand how this fearsome power should be deployed.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
60%
(226)
★★★★
25%
(94)
★★★
15%
(57)
★★
7%
(26)
-7%
(-26)

Most Helpful Reviews

✓ Verified Purchase

A keeper. A+

Very well written.excellent guide.Clearly explain a complex process. Impeachment put into historical context since Founding Fathers.Based on objective facts through history. No bias toward this current presidency. I find this book very informative, a pleasure to read. Highly recommended for those who want to learn about this incredible tool to use in order to remove the corrupt and the unfit to hold the constitution and keep democracy alive. I learned how fragile democratic process could be and how much thoughts our Founding Fathers did put into this "tool-to-protect" the constitution... A keeper. A+
40 people found this helpful
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Worth reading if you're a politics nerd

Disappointing. Compulsively-detailed analyses. The writing in this book is the epitome of "getting into the political weeds". My BA is in Political Science with an emphasis on Constitutional Law. From where I sit, there's no excuse for a president who fails to adhere to the Constitution, thereby violating his Oath of Office. But, as the authors point out, impeachment may not be the only way to remove an exceedingly unqualified, bad, destructive, selfish, egomaniacal, narcissistic, cruel president, from office.

The esteemed authors of this book look at this issue from every angle possible, and manage to make excuses, assumptions, generalizations, rationalizations, and invalidations of most of the major principles of the Constitution. When they can't figure out what Trump is doing, they simply fabricate a possible outcome of Trump's actions, and draw inadequate and illogical conclusions. The authors tend to forget that the law simply isn't being followed when it comes to this president, and the Constitution is being violated over and over again. It's difficult to accept that a 230 year old document is still relevant in these current times. Might the Trump presidency instigate a Constitutional Convention so that we can bring the document into the 21st century?

The gratifying aspect of this book (for me) is the recounting of how radically irrational and flat-out criminal in nature that certain acts of former presidents have occurred in history, whether punished or not. It is somewhat of a relief to realize that we're not the only ones to suffer through a presidency which started out with a known criminal, and which will predictably end with numerous criminal acts (committed while in office) being revealed, whether he is prosecuted or not.

Plowing through this book is like being in a gold mine...few nuggets to cash-in on, and lots of digging and sifting.
38 people found this helpful
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A thoughtful, informed treatise on presidential impeachment

The authors concisely explain the process of presidential impeachment and go into detail on how it might (in my opinion, should) be applied to Donald Trump. Instead of a highly partisan diatribe, they offer an analysis of our past presidential impeachments, suggest parallels and dissimilarities to Trump's criminal and dangerous acts and then outline what we can expect next as more and more Trump "impeachables" are revealed. I highly recommend the book for those on any side of the issue to become educated on the immanent end of the soon-to-be-impeached Trump.
15 people found this helpful
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Very informative

Great read that truly explains a complex situation. This is one of the best and very detailed explanation of how and why a president may be impeached. How in recent years every president has had calls for impeachment but most did not have any evidence for those calls. This book is highly recommended.
11 people found this helpful
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One Star

Hodge lodge of leftist slogans too embarrassing for a high school student
11 people found this helpful
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Out of date when it was published.

I have noted that most of the lower-starred reviews of this book are self-evidently coming from authors who are, to put it mildly, inclined towards belief in Mr. Trump.

I found this book to be a staid and sometimes quite dry recapitulation of the terms of impeachment as presented in the Constitution. (Amusingly, one lower-starred review implies that impeachment, as outlined in the book, constitutes a coup d'etat, which begs the question of what transfer of power that particular reviewer might consider legitimate). Honestly, I don't think this book is particularly good. Its premises with respect to the merits of impeachment as regards President Trump were out of date mere weeks after its publishing, and, frankly, the power of impeachment is not a terribly broad subject. There are few historical precedents and the text of the Constitution and its interpretation by historical courts and legislators has not provided enough matter to write a book of this length.
8 people found this helpful
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An amazing book. Everything I would expect from Dr

An amazing book. Everything I would expect from Dr. Tribe.
8 people found this helpful
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Helpful and balanced.

Detailed, historical examination. Guide to understanding the constitutional role of the impeachment power. Written by lawyers, good for everyday understanding.
3 people found this helpful
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Completed unbiased fact filled information

This book was really informative about the impeachment process. It gave information that I didn't know about past presidents and what exactly are the 3 crimes are that could lead to an impeachment. This is an important book for all Americans to read through especially with our current administration. I really liked how it was written without any bias at all.
3 people found this helpful
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A constitutional treatise!

A constitutional treatise on its historical creation (from the federalist papers to current day cases) and applications as to the President and our checks and balance system. This book gives meaning to "high crimes" and treason.
3 people found this helpful