This is a useful book. It is also an unsatisfying one.

It is useful because Dallek, a historian at the University of California at Los Angeles, has devised a sensible set of criteria for why some presidents succeed and others do not.

Similar exercises abound, from political scientist Clinton Rossiter's list of seven "qualities that a man must have or cultivate if he is to be president," to veteran journalist Hedley Donovan's list of 32 "attributes of presidential leadership." Still, there is an admirable compactness in Dallek's combination of his elements into five characteristics: vision, pragmatism, consensus, charisma, and credibility.

Taking the characteristics in turn, Dallek lists the presidents who had each and those who did not. Vision belonged to George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Lyndon Johnson, and Ronald Reagan. At the opposite extreme are those presidents with "no clear idea of where they wished to steer the ship of state": William Howard Taft, Warren Harding, Jimmy Carter, George Bush, and Bill Clinton.

But vision alone does not make for a successful presidency, and Dallek knows this. Indeed, the value of his approach lies in his subtle appreciation of how the five attributes interact to produce a successful, or unsuccessful, administration.

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