POLS 3600: American Political Thought: Books

American Political Thought: Readings and Materials presents a diverse collection of writings, speeches, judicial opinions, and other political documents, offering an introduction to the controversies and disputes that have mobilized Americans since the first settlements in North America.Ranging from the Colonial era to the present day - and featuring both traditional readings and lesser-known documents - this reader takes a historical approach that helps students see how political, economic, and social conditions led to the development of specific political ideas. Each chapterincludes a substantial introduction and each reading is enriched by headnotes and discussion questions.

President Obama′s hope of bringing a new kind of politics to Washington has fallen on hard times, with hardening party lines reflecting ideological polarization. Utilizing the organizing theme of partisan gridlock in the seventh edition′s introductory materials and author headnotes, editor Michael Cummings reminds readers that partisanship has long been a recurring problem for Americans, dating back to the deadly conflicts among the Iroquois nations, to the debates of the constitutional convention, and to the near destruction of the young republic during the Civil War. American Political Thoughtchallenges students to examine their own political thinking in light of insights from past thinkers and in terms of the challenges they face as citizens of the twenty-first century. Along with time-tested readings, about one-third of this edition′s authors are new, including a number of thinkers from earlier periods, as well as more recent selections from liberal, conservative, and more unconventional thinkers.

This book focuses on the political thought of American statesmen. These statesmen have had consistent and comprehensive views of the good of the country and their actions have been informed by those views. The editors argue that political life in America has been punctuated by three great crises in its history¿the crisis of the Founding, the crisis of the House Divided, and the crisis of the Great Depression. The Second World War was a crisis not just for America but for the whole of Western Civilization and, in the wake of that war, a new crisis arose which came to be called the "Cold War." Just when that gave the appearance of being resolved, the world reached a new juncture, a new crisis, which Samuel P. Huntington dubbed the "clash of civilizations." The statesmen having political responsibility in confronting the first three crises in America's history came as close to philosophic grasp of the problems of liberal democracy as one could demand from those embroiled in the active resolution of events. Their reflection of political philosophy in the full sense informed their actions. Since we cannot confidently explain the future, Aristotle warned us to call no man happy while he still lives. Thus the book, in its third edition, keeps to its settled pattern of dealing with settled matters. The preface to the third edition confronts the three later crises and, to the extent consistent with truth, attempts to relate them to the first three.

Revised and updated based on instructor feedback, this Second Edition presents key works from the colonial period to the present era. New selections--including readings from the Obama and Trump eras--help students understand how political thought in the 21st century builds on and sometimes departs from earlier traditions.

Originally published in 1960. The Federalist--a treatise on free government in peace and security--is one of the most important contributions to the literature on constitutional democracy and federalism in the United States. Scholars, lawyers, judges, and statesmen in the United States and abroad have lauded the impact of The Federalist. John Quincy Adams referred to the papers as a "classical work in the English language, and a commentary on the Constitution of the United States, of scarcely less authority than the Constitution itself." Since the publication of the papers, historians have analyzed the collected work from a variety of approaches, but at the time that Gottfried Dietze wrote in 1960, scholars mainly concentrated on specific components of The Federalist. Dietze intervened in this scholarship by offering a comprehensive study of the work, which promoted federalism as both a means for establishing free government and securing peace within a federal state and for maintaining security under the threat of foreign powers. In addition to a theoretical examination of the text, Dietze brings in a historical component by fleshing out how its authors were shaped by the political atmosphere in which they lived and how their writings transformed political literature for generations to come

Drawing on the rich resources of the ten-volume series of The Oxford Handbooks of Political Science, this one-volume distillation provides a comprehensive overview of all the main branches of contemporary political science: political theory; political institutions; political behavior;comparative politics; international relations; political economy; law and politics; public policy; contextual political analysis; and political methodology. Seventy-one of the top political scientists worldwide survey recent developments in those fields and provide penetrating introductions toexciting new fields of study. Following in the footsteps of the New Handbook of Political Science edited by Robert Goodin and Hans-Dieter Klingemann a decade before, this Oxford Handbook will become an indispensable guide to the scope and methods of political science as a whole. It will serve asthe reference book of record for political scientists and for those following their work for years to come.

The Oxford Handbook of the U.S. Constitution offers a comprehensive overview and introduction to the U.S. Constitution from the perspectives of history, political science, law, rights, and constitutional themes, while focusing on its development, structures, rights, and role in the U.S.political system and culture. This Handbook enables readers within and beyond the U.S. to develop a critical comprehension of the literature on the Constitution, along with accessible and up-to-date analysis. The historical essays included in this Handbook cover the Constitution from 1620 right through the Reagan Revolution to the present. Essays on political science detail how contemporary citizens in the United States rely extensively on political parties, interest groups, and bureaucrats to operate aconstitution designed to prevent the rise of parties, interest-group politics and an entrenched bureaucracy. The essays on law explore how contemporary citizens appear to expect and accept the exertions of power by a Supreme Court, whose members are increasingly disconnected from the world ofpractical politics. Essays on rights discuss how contemporary citizens living in a diverse multi-racial society seek guidance on the meaning of liberty and equality, from a Constitution designed for a society in which all politically relevant persons shared the same race, gender, religion andethnicity. Lastly, the essays on themes explain how in a "globalized" world, people living in the United States can continue to be governed by a constitution originally meant for a society geographically separated from the rest of the "civilized world." Whether a return to the pristineconstitutional institutions of the founding or a translation of these constitutional norms in the present is possible remains the central challenge of U.S. constitutionalism today.