Presidents in the Movies

Cinematic depictions of real U.S. presidents from Abraham Lincoln to George W. Bush explore how Hollywood movies represent American history and politics on screen. Morgan and his contributors show how films blend myth and reality to present a positive message about presidents as the epitome of America’s values and idealism until unpopular foreign wars in Vietnam and Iraq led to a darker portrayal of the imperial presidency, operated by Richard Nixon and Bush 43. This exciting new collection further considers how Hollywood has continually reinterpreted historically significant presidents, notably Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, to fit the times in which movies about them were made.

Iwan W. Morgan is Professor of U.S. Studies and Director of the United States Presidency Centre at the Institute for the Study of the Americas. He has written widely on the presidency, including Nixon (2002). His most recent book, The Age of Deficits: Presidents and Unbalanced Budgets from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush (2009) won the American Politics Group’s Richard E. Neustadt Prize.