A Book By its Cover: Picking the President: Understanding the Electoral College (Revised and Expanded Edition)

As my winter research leave winds down, I have the good fortune of completing a few amazing projects with colleagues. Among them is a new Revised and Expanded Edition of Eric Burin’s 2016 book: Picking the President.

It was fun to think about how to produce a new cover for the book that was true to its original form, but nevertheless stood out.

After tinkering with it a good bit, I decided simply to add a blue band to the bottom of the cover.

Here’s the back cover text:

During the latter half of 2024, with the United States amid unchartered waters, the second edition of Picking the President was assembled (like the first edition had been in 2017) to promote understanding of the Electoral College. To this end, Part I (“The First Edition of Picking the President”) consists of the first edition’s Preface, Introduction, and fourteen essays. Part II (“New Perspectives on the Electoral College”) unveils a new Prelude, a new Introduction, and fifteen new essays. Part III (“Resources”) features fifty items, including the complete debate on the subject at the Constitutional Convention, which illuminate the creation, ratification, and early evolution of the U.S.’s presidential election system. In providing an expansive view of the Electoral College, the second edition of Picking the President aims to promote understanding of it as the United States heads still further into the unknown.

With new contributions by Robert M. Alexander, Kathleen Bartoloni-Tuazon, Gary Bugh, Eric Burin, Jane E. Calvert, Wilfred U. Codrington III, Heather Cox Richardson, George C. Edwards III, Mark Stephen Jendrysik, John P. Kaminski, Randall M. Miller, Jack N. Rakove, Michael T. Rogers, Paul Schumaker, Michael H. Taylor, and Rosemarie Zagarri.