New Books in Politics

Lawrence Jacobs is the author (with James Druckman) of Who Governs? Presidents, Public Opinion, and Manipulation (University of Chicago Press, 2015). Jacobs is the Walter F. and Joan Mondale Chair for Political Studies at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and the Department of Political Science at the University of Minnesota. Just how responsive is […]

Just a few weeks ago, we heard Matthew Green discuss the minority in the House. Green explained that the minority party may not be as powerless as we typically think. InToo Weak to Govern: Majority Party Power and Appropriations in the U.S. Senate (Cambridge University Press, 2015), Peter Hanson offers another side of a similar […]

"Conspiracy theories are neither the vile excrescence of puny minds nor the telltale symptom of a sick society. They are the ineradicable stuff of politics."That's a quotation from American Conspiracy Theories (Oxford UP, 2014), by Joseph E. Uscinski and Joseph M. Parent, two professors of political science at the University of Miami.Their study of conspiracy […]

Funding for higher education in the U.S. is an increasingly divisive issue. Some states have turned to policies that tie institutional performance to funding appropriations so to have great accountability on public expenditure. In exploring the origins and implementation for these kinds of policies, Kevin Dougherty and Rebecca Natow recently published a new in-depth book […]

The Nation magazine is one of America’s most distinguished journalistic enterprises featuring the writing and work of such notable people as Albert Einstein, Emma Goldman, Molly Ivins, I.F. Stone and Hunter S. Thompson. The Nation was founded 150 years ago this July. It’s America’s oldest weekly magazine. To mark its 15othanniversary, it’s publishing a daily […]

We are all aware how important professional movie makers are to modern campaigns. Many trace this importance to John F. Kennedy’s presidential victory in 1960. Yet, as Kathryn Cramer Brownell shows in her new bookShowbiz Politics: Hollywood in American Political Life(University of North Carolina Press, 2014), Tinseltownwas a major influence on political races almost since […]

[Cross-posted with permission from Who Makes Cents? A History of Capitalism Podcast.]Today we’ll focus on the history of resistance to the New Deal. In her bookInvisible Hands: The Businessmen’s Crusade Against the New Deal (W. W. Norton,2010),Kimberly Phillips-Fein details how many of the most prominent elites had their ideas and practices shaped by groups that […]

The intersection between Spanish-bilingual education and sex education might not be immediately apparent. Yet, as Natalia Mehlman Petrzela shows in her new book, Classroom Wars: Language, Sex, and the Making of Modern Political Culture (Oxford University Press, 2015), the meeting between these two paradigms of education firmly connects in California during the 1960s and 70s. […]

For the past few decades a major focus has been how the Internet, and Internet associated new media, allows for greater social and political participation globally. There is no disputing that the Internet has allowed for more participation, but the medium carries an inherent elitism and the need for expertise, which may limit accessibility. According […]

Recently, historians have shown that the modern conservative movement is older and more complex than has often been assumed by either liberals or historians. Michelle Nickerson’s book, Mothers of Conservatism: Women and the Postwar Right (Princeton University Press, 2012)expands that literature even further, demonstrating not only the longer roots of conservative interest in family issues, […]

Doug McAdam and Karina Kloos are the authors of Deeply Divided: Racial Politics and Social Movements in Postwar America (Oxford University Press, 2014). McAdam is The Ray Lyman Wilbur Professor of Sociology at Stanford University and the former Director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Kloos is a scholar of political […]

In the annals of cold war history Italy is rarely seen as a crucial locale. In his stimulating new book, The United States, Italy, and the Origins of Cold War: Waging Political Warfare (Cambridge University Press, 2014), Kaeten Mistry reveals how events in Italy proved surprisingly crucial in defining a conflict that dominated much of […]

Political debate in western democracies such as in Canada, the U.S. and Britain has become empty theatre, full of rhetorical flourishes with little meaning for citizens, according to a new book by a former minister of finance in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. What I Learned About Politics (Nimbus, 2014)by Graham Steele is an […]

Victoria Hesford is an associated professor of Women and Gender Studies at Stony Brook University in New York. Her book Feeling Women’s Liberation (Duke University Press, 2013)examines the pivotal year of 1970 as defining the meaning of “women’s liberation.” Applying a theory of emotions to the rhetoric of mass media and the response of movement […]

[Cross-posted from New Books in Education]Contemporary American political culture is arguably more divisive than ever before. Blue states are bluer, red states are redder, and purple states are becoming harder and harder to find. Because of this divisiveness, teaching social studies and civics education has now become an overwhelmingly difficult task. Should a teacher share [...]

[Cross-posted fromNew Books in Political Science]Deana A. Rohlingerhas just writtenAbortion Politics, Mass Media, and Social Movements in America(Cambridge University Press, 2015). Rohlinger is associate professor of sociology at Florida State University. In the last several weeks, the podcast has featured a variety of political scientists who study interest groups and social movements. This week, Deana [...]

[Cross-posted from New Books in Political Science]Thomas F. Schalleris the author ofThe Stronghold: How Republicans Captured Congress but Surrendered the White House(Yale University Press, 2015). Schaller is professor of political science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. With a new Congress up and running, Republican control of Capitol Hill is back. But has the [...]

[Cross-posted fromNew Books in Medicine]Is pain real? Is pain relief a right? Who decides? InPain: A Political History(Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014),Keith Wailooinvestigates how people have interpreted and judged the suffering of others in the US from the mid-1940s to the present. While doctors and patients figure in his story, the primary protagonists are politicians, [...]

[Cross-posted fromNew Books in Education]The US Census has been an important American institution for over 220 years. Since 1790, the US population has been counted and compiled, important figures when tabulating representation and electoral votes. The Census has also captured the racial make-up of the US and has become a powerful public policy tool with [...]

[Cross-posted fromNew Books in Political Science]Michael HeaneyandFabio Rojasare the authors ofParty in the Street: The Antiwar Movement and the Democratic Party after 9/11(Cambridge University Press 2014). Heaney is assistant professor organizational studies and political science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Rojas is associate professor of sociology at Indiana University, Bloomington. Heaney and [...]