Statecraft and stagecraft: American political life in the age of personality

Abstract

Robert Schmuhl's Statecraft and Stagecraft establishes him in a new generation of scholarly journalists and journalistic scholars who are bent on rethinking the paradoxes of politics in an era of high technology. The book focuses on the ways in which the American public mind is being shaped by the communication breakthroughs of our time. Schmuhl examines the meanings of the breakthroughs, for better or worse, as they impinge on the theatre of presidential politics, often subordinating statecraft to stagecraft. The six essays are variations on his central theme - American political life and its relationship to American culture. Crossing a number of disciplines including politics, journalism, communication theory, presidential studies, media psychology, and moral philosophy, Schmuhl's essays represent a model of the effective integration of American studies as a field of practical as well as theoretical inquiry. Written for a broad audience, Statecraft and Stagecraft provides a provocative approach to American politics (both campaigning and governing), exploring the involvement of the media in our public life. Schmuhl attempts to deal with the fundamental questions that arise from the reliance on popular forms of communication in seeking office and conducting public affairs. His critical insights are matched by an an essential fairness as he explores how to keep political culture from being corrupted beyond retrieval.