Politics Government Books

The Olde English Writing Style made this book quite painful for me to read. Although the content is very interesting, if this was not required reading I don't think I would have mustered through it....

The editors put together an impressive pedigree of authors of the book's chapters. Foremost amongst these is Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations. He discusses how modern states still have a place in this era of increasing globalisation. Then Nobelist Amartya Sen asks how to judge its successes and failures. He suggests that it has much to offer. But also cautions that multinationals often prefer working in autocracies than in free wheeling democracies. And globalisation tends to deal in spreading capitalism rather than democracy.

Historian Samuel Huntington, philosopher Hans Kung and many others also give variant takes. More optimistic, though with qualifications.

You can ponder the essays as posing more thoughtful and measured views than many shrill screeds on the subject.

This book contrasts and studies King, Keohane, and Verba's Designing Social Inquiry. I'd read it first; you may never need KKV/DSI though I think that book is also a worthwhile read as well for a social science graduate student or researcher. But you get the essence of KKV in this book. If you are strongly oriented toward KKV, you'll know it soon enough by seeing how they position themselves here and how others criticize them.

There are thoughtful essays throughout, but in my view the best ones are summations by the editors--methodology profs will want to look into using one of the last two essays at minimum in any class. They do a nice job of blunting some of the more theory-laden criticisms of DSI even while being sympathetic to the notion that DSI didn't end qualitative methods as we know them.

The punchline is that rigor is good--no matter what you are doing. The other punchline is that there is no simple path to inference and understanding in the social sciences--it takes a mesh of methods and even then there are issues. We live in a multimethod world and versatile scholars wield quant and qual approaches at different times and often together. The case study isn't dead, and large N is going to have more and more prestige in certain quarters.

Case study and theory oriented readers will want to look at Alexander George's new book written with Andrew Bennett (MIT 2005). It's good stuff--the dissertation meat of any theory-oriented case study method section.

This is a well-presented, comprehensive account of California government. I use the latest edition of the book in my American Politics class. This book has a wealth of details that are relevant in our politics and society, as well as easy to find and understand. Have you ever wanted to know exactly how many state-wide officials are elected in California and who they are? You will find the answer in this book. What is the structure of the judiciary and how has it been reformed since 1998, when the voters passed the initiative that streamlined the system? The answer is here. I like this book and recommend it to undergraduate students who study California politics and professors who teach the subject on the undegraduate level. By the way, I mean "students" in the most general sense. Even if you are not in college but want to really know more about California politics rather than read a bombastic, sensationalist account of current events, pick up this book.

Given the history of this book, it is almost a classic. No course on Welfare policy could not refer to it.

This is an excellent book. I've used it in undergraduate (and graduate) courses here at the University of Chicago and have been VERY pleased with the result. Colleagues at Berkeley (where Professors Terrell and Gilbert teach) use it as well. It is quite possibly the most complete text on the subject I've ever used

I purchased this very expensive, yet thin paperback text for a social policy University course. The book is well written, but the perspectives are so American that I question the usefulness for a Canadian student of the subject.

The text is certainly updated, including a lot of glowing statistics about work-for-welfare programmes. The authors also use the words "unwed mother" and "Out of wedlock". These terms were thankfully exiled from the common social work language about 20 years ago, on this side of the border.

Oh yes and let's not forget the glowing stats,for abstinence- only sex education. Don't get me wrong there are lots of perspectives offered in the text but I'm accustomed to social work texts which approach material from a Social Work values perspective, which does not usually give a lot of ink to conservatives.

How about at the end of the semester I tried to resale the book and was given zip! I assume it was because of the sticker like cover that was on top of the real cover. So thanks a bunch! I used it during the semester, but didn't get any money back. Hey, I'm an English major! What in the world do I need a history book for? I have plenty of Norton Anthologies loaded with history as if I need more.

By far the best discussion of the 2004 election, and one of the best books on postwar electoral politics.

Wonderful service, arrived in a timely fashion and book was in great condition. Thanks again, cheaper than my campus book store!

We're using this book for our AP Comparative Government course, and I really have mixed feelings about it. While the information and style of writing is much more interesting than previous AP social studies books that I've had, the book is a bit dense in its black-and-white format with lots and LOTS of text. The other component that this book is also lacking is a BRIEF run-through or diagram of the countries' political systems. If you want to fashion your own condensed version of these systems, you must wade through quite a bit of text that is not particularly well organized.

As an AP Comparative Politics teacher, I have taught out of both the 4th and 5th editions of this book and have found it a good choice for a student text. I find it much more readable (particularly for high school seniors) than some of the more comprehensive texts. If you want to prepare your students adequately, however, you will need to supplement with outside material. For example, the Hauss text does not touch directly on political socialization which is a topic covered on the exam. I use Gabriel Almond's "Comparative Politics Today" as teacher resource.

Hauss delves heavily into the historical background of many of the countries, in particular those in the "Third World" section. This can be helpful for students who have a weak world history background, but as a teacher you will need to emphasize AP exam vs. background material.

Comments on the 5th edition vs. earlier editions: To follow the requirements of the new AP Comparative Gov't exam, this edition adds chapters on Nigeria and Iran. These chapters seem hastily done however as the Nigeria chapter in particular has several typos and the Iran chapter is comparatively short.

Chapters on Japan and South Africa are no longer in the printed text but there are on-line chapters on these countries, as well as an on-line chapter on Canada, on the author's website.

The 5th edition adds COLOR pictures which is a nice change from the 4th edition and makes the text somewhat more engaging for high school seniors, however compared to other high school texts visual appeal is not high on the publisher's priority list.

In summary, a good choice for AP Comparative politics as long as the teacher recognizes the need to supplement from outside sources where necessary.

Using this book for an introductory college course. The book is difficult to read; 52+ lines per 9 ½ page!! The entire book is black and white. News photos with loose commentary replace interesting Illustrations and descriptive graphs. Too much historical opinion and too less comparison & contrast of facts, entities, leaders and political systems.

Most difficult was the authors chronology and consistency in maintaining themes. Chronology is confusing. Some chapters begin with current events, continuing with ancient history then switching back to WWII period for example. Also lacking is consistency between chapters. There is limited and discussion of political parties and occasional refereneces to "what you read in the previous chapter" which are the extent of comparisions and contrast of political systems. I though this was to be a book on comparative politics, but this is more of a History book for High School students.

What was my prof thinking when she selected this book?

Use: University Level Introductory Politics Class

The good: Basic information on a wide variety of countries, from Mexico to Russia along with the basic outline of third world, newly industrialized countries and the first world. Bias is hard to determine and only slightly apparently in a few chapters. The companion website is excellent offering quizzes, flashcards and up to date information about each chapter. It may even be possible to ignore the book and focus exclusively on the website. Finally, while the chapters are somewhat tedious, the author ties them all together in a manner that allows the study of several chapters at the same time.

The bad: The CD is garbage. Absolute garbage. You don't need to even look at it to get a decent grade. The book, while clearly a introductory book is not well suited in many aspects for college level. High school European history teaches at least 25% of the book in superior ways. Also the author has a bad tendency to go from basic to vastly complicated and even writes that the gap between them is too time consuming. If history was a puzzle, this book would only give you the core and the outside pieces. Due to such behavior on the part of the author, the lack of information leading from the introductory information to the complicated makes it difficult to use properly in a college class. To properly understand the assess why things happen and how those events may shape the future, all of the pieces of information must be presented. This book fails to do so. Another bad thing is that the price, while slightly lower then most textbooks of similar design is that it is paperback not hardcover, and therefore cannot be resold for a decent amount at your local bookstore.