This book constitutes the first attempt at a systematic study of presidential leadership in the Americas since Independence. Inspired by the contributions of James MacGregor Burns and Stephen Skowronek on the United States, Burton and Goertzel identify the outstanding leaders of the United States and seven Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela), relate their contributions to their countries' history, and compare the emergent patterns across nations. Their contribution is therefore both methodological and substantive.

On the methodological side, the absence for Latin America of the expert surveys upon which US scholars have built classifications and rankings of US presidents led the authors to sample leaders on the basis of the frequency with which they appear in history books. Mentions in texts are not equivalent to expert judgments, but they are arguably an adequate proxy of leaders' importance, and thus an acceptable sampling procedure. The authors do admit to have used as sources for sampling only general history books with lists of names, which may have resulted in under-representing some Latin American presidents. They then use the samples they derived for each country as a basis for analyzing the contribution of leaders to its history.

This analysis proceeds in three stages. First, Burton and Goertzel use history books to establish the historical eras common to all sampled countries—Independence, National Consolidation, State Development, and Neoliberal Globalization, and (following Skowronek), the political regimes within each era and country, which are typically labeled with the names of prominent leaders or their most important policies. Second, they recount each country's history, focusing on leaders' ascent and demise and legacy, as vectors that shape historical eras and political regimes. Third, they compare emergent patterns across countries, focusing on how leaders propelled change. To organize their analysis and sustain comparability between the United States and the Latin American cases, the authors use Burns's distinction between transformational and transactional leaders, and Skowronek's typology of presidents, which distinguishes reconstructive leaders (who establish a new regime) from articulative presidents (who reinforce those recently established regimes), disjunctive presidents (who defend declining regimes), and preemptive presidents (who prepare but cannot realize regime changes). The analysis culminates with the identification of the transformational/reconstructive presidents of all historical eras, and the comparison of their respective contributions.

On the substantive side, this book makes two significant contributions. First, it pinpoints the absence of correlation between strong, proactive leadership and historical change. All sampled countries experienced strong leaders who proved unable to innovate, establish a new consensus, and/or institutionalize lasting change. It is unclear, though, whether their inability stemmed from leadership failures or institutional entrenchment. Neither the country histories nor the comparisons explicate the mechanisms by which each president became—or failed to become—transformational. Classifications seem to be based more on the authors' historical judgment than on empirical analysis grounded in theory.

On the other hand, the book forcefully argues the cyclical nature of leadership across countries. As has been demonstrated for the United States, Burton and Goertzel show that in Latin America transformational/reconstructive leaders are typically followed by articulative, disjunctive, and preemptive presidents, in sequences that vary across countries. However, since the authors do not describe just how each president eventually became each type of leader, it is difficult to assess whether leadership types, institutional resistance, economic structures, or conjunctural shocks were the decisive variables explaining the leadership cycles.

The book's contributions and shortcomings pose interesting challenges to both historians and political scientists. A sample of history books including works in Spanish and Portuguese, and a count of names that appear in them (instead of relying on indexes) might yield an expanded sample of leaders. A look into the institutional and organizational tools employed by presidents might offer more objective grounds for classifying leadership types. Future research may thus establish on stronger bases how and when leaders mattered for historical change, and whether cyclical change in the nature of leadership is indeed a pattern of presidential politics.