Campaigning for President in America, 1788–2016. By Scott John Hammond, Robert N. Roberts, and Valerie A. Sulfaro. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2016. 934 p. Acid free $68 (ISBN 978-1-4408-4890-2). E-book available (978-1-4408-5079-0), call for pricing

Campaigning for President in America, 1788–2016 is a revised and “streamlined edition” (xv) of the 3-volume 2012 second edition also published by Greenwood (Presidential Campaigns, Slogans, Issues, and Platforms: the Complete Encyclopedia) that removes “all of the stand-alone entries on campaign slogans and most of the more dated campaign issues” (xv). In addition, the “number of separate entries explaining major campaign events” (xv) of the past have also been reduced.

Newly written or revised topic-specific articles covering emerging campaign issues such as “Earned Media” bring Campaigning for President in America, 1788–2016 current through the South Carolina Democratic Primary held on February 27. In this reviewer’s opinion the reader would have been better served if the concluding date of Campaigning for President in America actually carried the 2016 campaign through the election. As it stands the authors speculate on the outcomes of the post-February 2016 primary and caucus contests in their “Note to Our Readers” and offer a seventeen-page analysis of the contestants and their chances in “Campaign of 2016: A Provisional Review and Tentative Preview,” the concluding chapter in the book’s narrative section on presidential campaigns.

Campaigning for President in America, 1788–2016 is divided into two major sections followed by a selective bibliography and an index. “Issues, Strategies, Practices, and Events,” the first section, follows an A-Z arrangement. Short articles define campaign-related terms such as “Astroturfers,” “Faithless Elector,” “Microtargeting,” and “Values Voters,” give examples of their usage, provide “see also” references to related terms, and offer a short listing of additional resources for further reading. This section demystifies terms more familiar to students of political science than to the general public in clear jargon-free language that achieves the authors’ goal to produce a reference work “more amenable and accessible to a wider readership” (xv).

“Presidential Campaigns,” the second section of this work is a detailed narrative arranged in chronological order of the salient historical features of every presidential campaign from Washington through Obama plus the aforementioned speculative chapter on the 2016 campaign in progress. Each campaign narrative concludes with a brief listing of citations for additional reading. Presumably the unattributed sources for the many quotations used throughout the narrative campaign histories are drawn from these additional readings lists.

Campaigning for President in America, 1788–2016 concludes with a seventeen-page selected bibliography of monographs, journal articles, reference works, and websites. Printed works cited range in publication date from the mid-1960s to 2016. The index is comprehensive and thorough.

Three other recent reference publications tread similar ground: Elections A to Z, 4th edition, by Dave Tarr and Bob Benenson (CQ Press 2012); Encyclopedia of US Campaigns, Elections, and Electoral Behavior, edited by Kenneth F. Warren (Sage 2008; 2 volumes), and Encyclopedia of American Political Parties and Elections, edited by Larry J. Sabato and Howard R. Ernst (Facts on File 2006). Each of these publications focuses on core issues and themes related to electoral politics writ large with correspondingly appropriate articles and terms such as “Scandals, State and Local Elections” (Encyclopedia of U.S. Campaigns, Elections, and Electoral Behavior, volume 2, 794–37) and “Voting Machines” (Elections A to Z, 661–62) outside the purview of the more narrowly subscribed Campaigning for President in America, 1788–2016.

This is not to say that these other reference publications neglect the presidency. Rather, treatment differs in scope and focus. Whereas, for example, the lengthier narrative description of the presidential election of 1976 in Campaigning for President in America, 1788–2016 (761–70) emphasizes the campaign itself in contrast treatment of the same election in Encyclopedia of American Political Parties and Elections (362–63) eschews a lengthy narrative to focus on the key elements of the election, to summarize the election’s significance in the history of presidential contests, and to provide an at-a-glance tabulation of the winning ticket, the contestants and their party affiliation, and both the popular and Electoral College tallies.

Campaigning for President in America, 1788–2016 provides another tool by which high school, community college, and lower division undergraduate students, in addition to the general public, can understand the ins and outs of campaigning for president in America for a relatively small amount of money. Recommend with a caveat regarding the misleading date. —Sally Moffitt, Reference Librarian and Bibliographer for Anthropology, History, Philosophy, Political Science; Africana Studies, Asian Studies, Judaic Studies, Latin American Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Cohen Library Enrichment Collection, Langsam Library, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio