Selecting one particular close-up is hard: I’m trying to make the argument that all the different elements of Carter’s treatment of human rights were important. If just one thing had to pulled out, however, it would be the chapter on how four presidents used “human rights.” I looked at the ways Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush all used similar language—sometimes to very similar ends and sometimes to very different ones.Carter wanted to see human rights at the center of our foreign policy—and he wanted to be able to criticize and applaud any nation, whether ally or not, on human rights grounds. He was often criticized, in fact, for being kinder to our opponents than to our allies. Reagan had a very different approach to human rights, and tended to overlook human rights problems in allied countries while focusing on abuses in communist nations. Bill Clinton, governing after the Cold War, took a complex approach to human rights, in which he used the issue as a rationale for intervention in some areas (Bosnia) while avoiding intervention in other areas (Rwanda). And George W. Bush, of course, is the most problematic of the lot, for he used human rights as a reason for the Iraq invasion, and yet had to deal with events like the Guantanamo prison scandal.This history is crucial because on the one hand, it doesn’t matter who is president—the institution is strong, and whoever sits behind that desk is going to make the same decisions. On the other hand, it matters a great deal who the president is—some decisions, such as the choice to go to war in Iraq, are extraordinarily dependent upon who is in office. The trick is knowing which decisions are which.I think this book is significant for two reasons.First, there is so much smart work in the world that it is almost impossible to keep up with your own field, much less get into a field where you aren’t comfortable. I’m lucky because I’ve always been at the intersection of different areas. That is not to say that I am the expert in any one of them, but I am aware of the work in a lot of different fields. So I was able to synthesize some of the most important ideas from several different subfields. Hopefully, the book brings some insight that we wouldn’t otherwise have.Second, I think it is important for us to understand how the presidency really works in relation to the mass public. When are presidents persuasive? How does that persuasion work? What are the consequences? The presidency looms so large in public affairs and the stakes are so high that any insight we can muster on the institution is important.