SOURCE: "Downward the Course of Empire," in The New Yorker, Vol. XLIX, No. 42, December 10, 1973, pp. 190, 193-94, 196.

Rovere collaborated with Schlesinger on The General and the President and the Future of American Foreign Policy (1951). In the following review, he examines Schlesinger's The Imperial Presidency, commending his thoroughness and commenting on his blatant democratic partisanship.

No other American institution has held as much fascination for either Americans or foreigners as the Presidency. In its Constitutional and separation-of-powers setting, it is an American invention. Though certain attributes of it have been put to use elsewhere, it is still uniquely American. Perhaps it has already seen its best days, but it has endured and worked well for by far the better part of two centuries. "Not many Presidents have been brilliant," Lord Bryce wrote in 1921. "Some have not risen to the full moral height of the position. But none has been base...