Politics Government Books

This book gave me a great overview of modern political thought. I had previously read other introductions, and this one beat them hand down. I can recommend it to anyone getting into the field, also beginners as I found it to be easy to understand.

Some reviewers have commented on him interjecting personal ideas. I did not find that annoying at all. Better he express his opinions outright then try to sneak them in. His opinions were part of the larger narrative and were not forced upon the reader. I think it definitely added something to a book that would perhaps otherwise be a dry introduction. Well done by Kymlicka!

I am a layperson in political philosophy. I found the book comprehensive and easy to understand. Actually, I had borrowed the book at first from a libray and then decided to purchase it, because I found it so good and helpful in my understanding of our political and social systems and the underlying philosophical thoughts.

The essays in here cover the core themes of contemporary Western political thought - liberal egalitarianism, libertarianism, reconstructed Marxism, comunitarianism etc. Most of the bases are covered, and the prevailing arguments are treated with intelligence and insight. Kymlicka is obviously a socially orientated liberal, and supports arguments to this effect, but is always balanced and considerate in his approach of a wide variety of thinkers. This book is best used in conjunction with other texts and journal articles to gain more incisive insight.

I used it in my undergraduate political theory studies to good effect.

This is a first rate survey of modern political philosophy. Kymlicka devotes individual chapters to Utilitarianism, Liberal Equality views (eg, Rawls and Dworkin), Libertarianism, Marxism, Communitarianism, Citizenship Theory, Multiculturalism, and Feminism. Kymlicka's approach is the same in each chapter. He attempts to describe each position as fairly and charitably as possible, followed by criticism of the position. Kymlicka is an excellent critic and clear writer, logical and fair minded. In general, most positions, including Utilitarianism, Libertarianism, Marxism, and the different strains of Communitarianism receive vigorous criticism. Liberal Equality views, such as those of Rawls and Dworkin, fare better, though Kymlicka points out a number of problems with these positions as well. In Kymlicka's analysis, the Liberal Equality theories often capture the better features of alternative theories but without many of the inconsistencies and problems exhibited by these theories. Kymlicka does sometimes use a problematic argument. In some disucssions of non-Liberal theories, he will resort to appeals to intuition to attack those theories. For example, the strict application of some forms of Utilitarianism seems to violate our sense of the sanctity of human rights. This is a fair argument but it may have limitations not acknowledged by Kymlicka. Given that most readers of this book have been raised in essentially Liberal societies, its likely their intuitions will be Liberal in nature. What would happen if appealing to intuitions of people raised in a caste based or highly egalitarian society? Kymlicka has a thoughtful chapter on Multiculturalism, which is an area of considerable interest to him. He concludes with a weaker chapter on Feminism, which I think is a bit short sighted and underestimates the impact of present approaches to improving the state of women.
All chapters have fine footnotes and excellent bibliographies.

This book contains the best overview of all the important themes, subjects and schools of contemporary normative political philosophy. The language is simple yet elegant and it might indeed be fun to read at some points.

The chapters it contains are as follows:

2. Utilitarianism - the best discussion of utilitarianism I have found. Beats all introductory ethics books by far (see my other reviews).

3. Liberal egalitarianism - Very good overview of Rawls's earlier theory (TJ). He doesn't commit the regular mistakes that introductory books make, but sees Rawls's arguments as they should be seen. Contains also a great overview of a much less-known theory of Dworkin (which was only available in articles before "Sovereign Virtue" 2000).

4. Libertarianism - Indepth overview of Nozick's theory + very good counterarguments. Sees Nozick as he should be seen with the concept of self-ownership at the center of the entitlement theory. Great discussion of the rebuttals to Chamberlain experiment. Nozick can be interpreted differently, but Kymlickas is also an adequate one. This chapter also includes an overview of contractarian mutual advantage theory put forward by David Gauthier. It concludes with a good discussion of libertarianism and freedom and how they do not really fit together.

5. Marxism - Indepth overview of contemporary analytical marxism in the context of politics. Discussion of the marxist rejection of justice, marxist arguments for abolishing private property, about exploitation and about alienation. Guys mentioned are Cohen, Elster, Roemer and others. You wont find this material elsewhere.

6. Communitarianism - The movement of the 80s. Great discussion of philosophical communitarianism's main ideas like: politics of the common good, social self, social thesis and etc. Sandel and Taylor are mostly mentioned, Walzer and MacIntyre less so.

7. Citizenship theory/ 8. Multiculturalism - an addition in the new, 2001 edition. Haven't read those parts yet, but since these are the areas that Kymlicka is the most known scholar in, you should know what to expect.

9. Feminism - A very interesting overview of the wide field of feminism in politics. Touches upon sexual equality and discrimination, the public and the private and the ethic of care (Gilligan and others).

You will also get a great bibliography and a lot of ideas for further reading. It is a must have for any aspiring student in political philosophy or ethics. Kymlicka himself seems to support a somewhat liberal position most, although he doesn't explicitly state it.

BUT

It is not only for students. If you read a lot of primary sources you can see that many quote this book. It isnt just a neutral introductory volume (there are no such things in phil anyway), but a book with many good arguments by Kymlicka not found elsewhere. Of course it also contains good overviews of arguments found in articles that are not usually available for or read by most people. So even a working scholar can benefit a lot from this book - but they probably know that already :)

P.S to the reviewer who had doubts about treating Nozick on the basis of equality. Nozicks theory is not about equality in the real world, but the justification of the theory is in some sense the equality of everyones self-ownership rights. This is the reason Kymlicka deals with Nozick in the way he does.

It seems like most, if not all, the information in this book is self-explanatory, but the author does a thorough job explaining and elaborating on lesser known topics.

i first came upon this book through my brother who studies archaeology at university of arizona. his american indian studies professor used this book as the textbook for the class. i read it cover to cover and found it very intruiging and fascinating (as well as horrifying). a great start for anyone whos interested in how the land your living on went from belonging to an indian tribe to becoming yours, and what happened to the people who owned it.

I used this textbook for an Introduction to American Government class at college. Frankly, I found the book almost simplistic at points but it was always very clear and concise. I would definately recommend this text for anyone who is looking for a comprehensive, yet readable guide to US Gov. Plus, it is so often updated with new editions that it makes for vert relevant reading. Highly recommended.

I have never read an entire textbook in my life. This was the first, and it actually kept my attention for the most part. At times it gets boring but hey its the basics of government you can't expect excitement all the time. There are plenty of examples of the various definitions given with very recent applications. Examples make it easier rather than just spitting out the definition and leaving the reader to interpret. I am an engineering major that needed a government class to graduate and I am glad this was the book I had b/c I hate government/history.

This book is disappointing. While it may help a college student or other really new person grasp some of the concepts of organizing it is not useful to practioners.

The Midwest Academy used to have a very good training manual covering many issues. As the book got slicker looking the information got worse.

Get Shel Trapp's old Basics of Organizing instead - much more useful, and free on the internet.

This manual takes you through waht you need to know about organizing. From strategy development to research to implementation, this book shows you how to do it. Well written and simple to understand. Outstanding reference for novice to experienced organizer.

The best purchase you can make and you won't need to buy others.

Explains clearly, through the experience and scholarship of a black who came of age in the 1960s and had a ringside seat for the civil rights era, how we all went wrong. Since its purpose is not equal rights but "dissociation" of whites from accusations of racism, affirmative action is itself racist, as it assaults the uniqueness of all Americans by reducing them to generic blacks and generic whites. Hard reading, but is only 181 relatively short pages and will reward your effort. Can also be expanded to various other problems, such as the oversupply of handicapped parking spaces and the rising reverse sex discrimination in business.

The result of all this may be no less than the destruction of American strength, an end to the valued status of "personal responsibility, hard work, individual initiative, delayed gratification, commitment to excellence, competition by merit, the honor in achievement" (p. 109), and, with it, an end to American greatness. We need a national dialogue on how we can reverse it - Barack, are you ready? In the meantime, all Americans should read this book.

"White Guilt" by Shelby Steele is well worth your time. If you're wondering how race relations in this country have become so poisonous, Shelby Steele has a significant part of the answer. Here's how toxic race relations are in this country right now: it's significant (even though it should not be) that Shelby Steele is black.

Steele describes how guilt-motivated bad behavior on the part of white people has enabled anger-motivated bad behavior by black militants (e.g. Al Sharpton), to the point that the "conversation on race" that everyone talks about is difficult-to-impossible. Black or white, if you say the wrong thing, you're in big trouble.

I hope a lot of people read this book. It might help.

Here are some other books that might also help:
Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America
Come On People: On the Path from Victims to Victors

At first I was confused as to where he was going with the introduction but then as I read on it made a little more sense. I found that he seemed to do a lot of double talking that made some of his points difficult to understand. Along with the difficulty understanding the basis for some of his arguments, I did tend to agree with him on some occasions. If you like reading essay formats so to speak, this is a book for you. I tend to prefer a bit more of a story when I read.

Lots of good points but too many show-off, pedantic words and sentences that detract from the good ideas. This books message could have been written in a 2 page New Yorker magazine article.

Clear discernment of a wrong turn taken after the Civil Rights victories of the mid 1960s. See what I mean by reading these quotes:

'Black America faced two options. We could seize on the great freedom we had just won in the civil rights victories and advance through education, skill development, and entrepreneurialism combined with an unbending assault on any continuing discrimination; or we could go after these things indirectly by pressuring the society that had wronged us into taking the lion's share of responsibility in resurrecting us. The new black militancy that exploded everywhere in the late sixties - and that came to define the strategy for black advancement for the next four decades - grew out of black America's complete embrace of the latter option.' (p.58)

'Authentic black militancy, of the sort that Malcolm X at times seemed capable of, always embraced responsibility as power itself. It demanded only the freedom and equal treatment under the law that would allow responsibility to be the same fount of hope, power, and advancement in blacks that it was for others. If Malcolm X railed ferociously against white America, he never called for a redistribution of responsibility for black uplift to whites or American institutions. His was a self-help black militancy that was naturally sceptical about what others would actually do for blacks. You might call it "hard-work" militancy, since it was built around the difficult principles of self-sacrifice, delayed gratification, family unity, individual initiative, entrepreneurialism, and so on. ... . What made this militancy authentic was that it truly sought to restore an oppressed people to human dignity through real development and without an enmeshment with or dependency on the guilt of whites.' (pp.59, 60)

Everyone should read this!

Unlike the reportage leading up the invasion of Iraq, which relied heavily on anonymous sources who spoon fed mainstream reporters wild tales of Iraq's vast weapons cache, lapped up by Pulitzer Prize winning journalists and printed as fact, the reports about stolen elections and the massive purge of minorities and poor people from voter rolls in "Loser Take All" is backed up by smoking gun evidence in the form of documents and on the record accounts from public officials and behind-the-scenes executives employed by e-voting companies.


"Loser Take All" is indeed an important historical document; a damning indictment of the electoral process that also tells the real story of how Bush was "elected" to a second term.

This book encapsulates years of research to provide what used to come from investigative journalists -- before mainstream corporate media cornered the market on misinformation and tabloid news. A loser can win a rigged election in America because counting the vote is now the privy of private enterprise. Allegations of election fraud are doused by a state of denial that it can't happen in the greatest democracy in the world. But fact after fact reveals that, just like the public airwaves, there is no Fairness Doctrine when it comes to elections. Loser Take All equally blames Republican operatives, spineless Democrats, and a complacent Fourth Estate for turning our great republic into a renegade nation. There is a sliver of hope to return our government to We the People. Read this book, if you dare, and then share it with others.

Niall Rudd's edition of Cicero's two works The Republic and The Laws is the ideal handbook for the aspiring statesman; the accomplished politician should also be referred to use these two dialogues as a sort of political guide to draw from. In these two texts, the reader will find Cicero in all his eloquence artfully dicating the principles of what it means to be a good man and what it takes to create and consolidate states. This book will leave a lasting impression upon anyone who pans through the pages of these two very important works of the great Marcus Tullius Cicero. Also found here are the always insightful explanatory notes contained in the excellent series of Oxford World Classics; and the concise, scholarly introductions will without a doubt throw significant light upon the principles addressed throughout these timeless texts.

From Plato's Republic or before, people have written their ideas of what the ideal state would look like, and especially how it would be governed. Cicero, a citizen of classical Rome adds his thoughts in the first half of this volume. To him, the philosophically ideal state would be very much like Rome itself.

Cicero establishes early on (p.16) that, regarding the marvels of the physical world, "that kind of knowledge will not make us better or happier people." Only statecraft is worthy of serious study. That ideal state would be populated by "We Romans, paragons of justice as we are" (p.63-64), who forbid many industries in their outlying states "in order to enhance the value of our own products." He reinforces this idea of the predatory state by saying "No state is so stupid as not to prefer wicked domination to virtuous subjection" (p.67), as if domination and subjection are the only two roles that states may hold with respect to each other.

Cicero presents his thoughts in the form of Platonic dialogs, but without the clear direction of Plato's works. Instead, these little plays express Cicero's unfailingly high opinion of himself and of Rome, dismissing all others (both people and states) as unworthy of interest. His "Lasw" follow the same pattern, exploring the ideal by reciting the rules that Rome had in place, with only minor revisions.

Mixed in with his smug sense of superiority regarding self and state, Cicero makes a few points of interest. He compares monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy as forms of government. He notes that each has flaws, and each holds the seeds of its own collapse. Instead of any one, Cicero proposes an ideal government - i.e., Rome's own - that combines all three. I found it interesting that the US constitution creates much the same structure. We have the mono-archic presidency, oligarchic supreme court, and democratic Senate and Congress. Unfortunatley, I found Cicero's discussion too diffuse and too broken by losses through the centuries to get any clear idea of how he would have divided responsibility between the three, so I can not contrast his ideal to our current situation.

The translation is lively and modern. Profuse end notes fill in cultural background and ambiguities in translation, adding nicely to the main text. I could only ask for uniform numbering in the references - end notes are numbered by the page to which they refer, but cross reference by section numbers in the text. That, combined with numbers that apparently identify leaves of the original, creating an indexing scheme that fell short in clarity. Those minor problems seem not to interfere with Cicero's presentation, or with Cicero's sense of his own importance and Rome's.

//wiredweird

I never thought that I would find myself reading a book that was in favor of bureaucracy. Being a skeptic, I thought that every second spent reading this book would be a waste of time. However, I was surprised at how Charles T. Goodsell makes you want to jump on the bureaucracy bandwagon. Charles Goodsell has done a fair job on his book "A Case for Bureaucracy: A Public Administration Polemic." Goodsell looks at several of the preconceived notions that are held by the general population about the size, structure, hierarchy, and organization of the bureaucracy regardless whether it is in federal, state, or local governments. Goodsell begins each chapter with a great deal of enthusiasm but runs out of steam when it comes to making a solid argument for bureaucracy in some of the areas discussed. The author obviously has an affinity for statistics, which he uses throughout ninety percent of his book. Goodsell tries to rely on data that was collected some twenty to thirty years ago. The public sector has undergone numerous changes since some of these surveys were conducted. Some of the studies that he uses such as comparisons between Detroit and Delhi, I found somewhat irrelevant. Charles T. Goodsell makes a strong case for the bureaucracy in the United States. His unique approach will convince many that the bureaucracy is open, flexible, and even willing to change. However, I feel that because of his outdated and irrelevant surveys and studies, which he uses throughout his book, which these detract from rather than make the case in favor of bureaucracy. The book is a noble attempt to win citizens over to the idea that the bureaucracy is a polite, customer service oriented, friendly, and helpful group of 20 million individuals that are there to serve them. I am not sure that even the most well written defense of the bureaucracy will alleviate the notions that are held by most citizens.

So far, much has been written about the evils of bureaucracy, but less has been written about the accomplishments of bureaucracy. Generally, the message given by popular literature regarding government bureaucracy was one-sided and too far from completeness. In this book, the author tries to draw a complete picture of government bureaucracy. In contrast to popular bureaucracy-bashing writing, Goodsell reaches surprisingly interesting conclusions that contradict long-held beliefs toward public bureaucracy.

The overall characterization of government bureaucracy within popular culture reflects that government bureaucracy is overstaffed, inflexible, unresponsive and power hungry. In forming such an image, media and academia have played a crucial role, according to the author. The economists are hostile to government bureaucracy on the basis that competitive markets and profit incentives are feasible means to obtain efficiency; sociologists are concerned with pathologies of bureaucracy; and so on. However, generally, criticism of bureaucracy is not well supported by empirical data. As being different from those who attack bureaucracy based on unfounded assumptions most of the time, Goodsell supports his arguments with empirical data that have been obtained from citizen surveys. In my opinion, the reason for the case is very well presented and worthy of careful reading.

One of the arguments of the author is that critiques of government bureaucracy fall prey to the mistake of seeing bureaucracy as a whole (a form of abstraction), and ignoring the differences between different public agencies. Goodsell aptly illustrates how public agencies greatly differ from each other in terms of performance, conduct and so on. Also, citizen surveys support the fact that ordinary citizens are glad from their relationships with government bureaucracy in their local neighborhoods. However, as a general concept, bureaucracy is an oxymoron (this paradox, in literature, is called "the paradox of distance", that is, ordinary citizens are happy with their business with bureaucracy and bureaucrats, but they have negative attitudes toward `bureaucracy'-the more distant the bureaucracy the more the negative attitude is).

Not only Goodsell examines accomplishments of government bureaucracy, but also he convincingly demonstrates the facts that impede the expected success of the government bureaucracy, including vague goals given to bureaucracy, the problems of coordination created by excessive outsourcing (administration by proxy), the complexity of social problems that government bureaucracy deals with, efficiency and equity conflict, and the like. In handling the subject, this book is very comprehensive, and the author files an excellent and convincing case. Not easy to summarize all the points, however all popular myths regarding government bureaucracy I (probably you) have heard are answered in the book with tremendous clearness.

Overall, I highly recommend this classic to anybody who is interested in government bureaucracy. I also recommend "The Spirit of Public Administration" by George Frederickson, and "Bureaucracy" by James Wilson. The case for bureaucracy is a case for bureaucracy, and you are the members of the Jury. The final decision is up to you.

This one was a great reference up to 10 September 2001. Then everything changed and much of what is in this book is out of date. To be fair though, there is stll considerable value here, but that value puts it into the 'buy a used one' category (but hey, that slightly dog-eared, somewhat out of date, reference work on the shelf behind your desk gives you that 'old hand' 'been there, done that' credibility, so this isn't all bad.)

What's good about this one:
-The description of the intelligence cycle.
-The discussions of challenges facing the U.S. intelligence community post Cold War (but pre-9/11; belay that, many of the issues addressed are still challenges that have not been resolved, just set to one side in the pursuit of the global war on terror).
-The description and discussion of the processes and policies surrounding the intelligence cycle.
-It is a good reference work for tracing the establishment of several of the agencies.

What's not so good about this:
-The world changed two years after this book's publication in 1999. And all the shortcomings of this book stem from this. The description of the strategic organization of the U.S. military is not accurate. The Dept. of Homeland Security is not mentioned. The National Intelligence Director is not mentioned. Bin Laden and Al Qaeda aren't mentioned. The patriot act isn't here. The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency is here under its old name, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency. And so forth...
-There have been some bigger changes that are mostly technology driven. At the time this book was written, the idea that one could get 1 meter resolution satellite imagery for free (though a little dated) was pretty shocking for most folks, but if you go to Google maps right now...

Over all, 'The U.S. Intelligence Community' is out of date for descriptions of the current establishment and much of the technology, but is pretty darn good for processes and some of the big concepts. Caveat lector: be mindful that technology changes constantly, and what's in this book was declassified, hence even further out of date than the copyright date would indicate.

Post Script: Thank you, W. Blair for pointing out that there is a newer edition. This review only applies to the fourth, not fifth and current edition. Darn you, W. Blair, for forcing my hand to get the new edition 8-)

E. M. Van Court

Richelson does an excellent job of providing a link and detail to all of the U.S. intelligence successes and failures over the last 35 years. This is a superb reference book for the young and old intelligence officer in a Joint or Interagency environment that needs to know how the intelligence system in the United States works. Richelson does not write in theory. All of this book is practical, useful and hard-hitting. It will give you excellent depth and insight into those often heard but little known intelligence successes and debacles. From the USS Pueblo to the origin and current status of satellite intelligence, this book covers it all.