All the Change in the World By Thomas Frank Competitive magnificence is the main aesthetic principle of modern presidential libraries. From the rectilinear sprawl of the George W. Bush Presidential Center to the elevated glass box of Bill Clinton’s edifice, each new entrant is required to outdo its predecessors in price, grandness, and architectural spectacle. The second principle, almost as important, is that with each successive presidential center, the vanity function of these facilities increasingly overshadows their research function. Technically, the institutions I am describing are quasi-public; they exist in order to catalogue the records of the executive branch and make them available to researchers. …