American Politics texts: a heads up for teachers (with links to Amazon)

It’s that time of year when I think about ordering books for the new term, and I thought I’d share with readers details of a couple of American publications on US Politics.

Basically I came across two very good texts when browsing in Northeastern University’s bookshop in Chicago at around the time of the 2006 midterms.

The first is “Approaching Democracy” by Larry Berman et al. I have used the California edition, published November 2006, for the last year or so. It weighs in at 800 pages, and is pretty expensive at just over £60 and for this reason probably serves better as a teacher copy rather than a student text, even though they are clearly designed to be student friendly – lots of colour photographs, glossaries, etc

But what I like about the text from a teacher point of view is that the book contains far more additional information that can be used to aid teacher delivery than UK equivalents. Many of the graphics can be copied to be used in class handouts or for overheads. For instance there is a colour graphic showing party control of the White House, House, and Senate. This is something we might illustrate on the board ourselves using colour pens, but here is one ready prepared. Another example is a two page spread outlining the party platforms at the 2004 election – cuts down on lots of personal research and copying and pasting! In short it contains lots of the type of info that we as teachers might have dug around for on the internet but brings it together into one source.

This is what the blurb on Amazon says:

‘For undergraduate courses at colleges and universities in California for American and California Government Courses. Approaching Democracy is the American Government book with a clear and compelling central theme, designed to elevate student interest. Now in a California Edition! More than most states, California embodies the essence of American democratic and federal systems. The unique relationship between the federal government and California demonstrates how pervasive the idea of democracy has been as a founding principle of American politics. Approaching Democracy now includes 7 chapters on California politics and government. Approaching Democracy addresses the evolving nature of the American experiment in democratic government. It teaches students the theory and the basics of American political science, the political history of this nation, and provides the critical thinking skills needed to analyze these evolving relationships. This new Teaching and Learning Classroom (TLC) California edition introduces features that incorporates more “student empowerment” tools to reinforce how American Government is relevant to students’ lives today.Larry Berman and Bruce Allen Murphy, long-time teachers of the introductory American Political science course in both large and small public and private universities, set out to write a book that offers a clear theme—one that is even more relevant now than it was when it was first presented—in a highly readable, easy-to-understand format.’

I have just ordered a couple of copies of the ‘National Value Edition’
at half the price of the edition I have already. I don’t know what the key differences are to make it cheaper, but there might be enough in it to make it worthwhile as a class text.

The second very useful text I have plundered from is “America’s New Democracy” by Morris P. Fiorina et al. These Penguin editions are also aimed at US college students, and whilst there isn’t a noticeably different slant taken on core topics these texts do go into certain areas in greater depth in relation to stock A level questions, such as strengths and weaknesses of the presidential nomination process, or reasons for low voter turnout.

On the edition published after the 2006 midterms (there has been another since and another is due for publication in Jan 2009) the blurb states:

‘The new edition of this highly affordable Penguin Academic Series book provides a lively, engaging introduction to American government that now been updated to include complete coverage of the 2006 midterm elections, the campaigns and results, and the most relevant and important issues and events that have dominated the headlines and national dialogue throughout 2005 and 2006: the war in Iraq; the politics, policies, and fortunes of the second George W. Bush administration; the debate over illegal immigration; the new faces in and decisions from the Supreme Court; scandals and corruption with the executive and legislative branch, and more.’

A final thing both these books have in their favour is that they are updated annually. I am a big fan of the books by Robert Singh and Alan Grant, but both are quite a bit out of date.