First Year project releases two books

January 5, 2018 Thomas van der Voort
UVA Press
First Year Project books are available from UVA Press

The Miller Center's groundbreaking First Year Project has published two books with the University of Virginia Press.

Michael Nelson, the Fulmer Professor of Political Science at Rhodes College, and a Miller Center senior fellow, harnesses his considerable expertise to assess our 45th president's performance in Trump's First Year. The book provides a thorough account and scholarly assessment of Donald Trump’s first year as president, starting with his election and transition in 2016. The analysis is grounded in the modern history of the presidency as well as in the larger constitutional and political order. Nelson considers the dramatic election itself, the forming and reforming of the administration, congressional relations, executive actions, bureaucratic politics, judicial appointments and decisions, media relations and public communications, and public opinion.

Nelson also joins  the Center's Stefanie Georgakis-Abbott and former Miller Center policy director Jeff Chidester as editors of Crucible: The President's First Year. Drawn from the First Year Project's 11-volume colleciton of essays, Crucible addresses the core questions facing a new president, from navigating a broken political system to thriving in a changing media environment. The project’s illustrious participants—Stephen Skowronek, Alan Taylor, Gary Gallagher, Sidney M. Milkis, H. W. Brands, William A. Galston, and Peter Wehner, and many others—explore both opportunities and challenges in key policy areas, from national security, race, and immigration to opportunity, mobility, and fiscal policy.

Crucible consolidates the most salient lessons that can be drawn from both the best and the worst presidencies in American history, as well as from the many in between, to provide true insight on the most important issues facing any new president in the first year of office.