Product Description A lively, straight-forward approach to the basics of American Politics Written to engage students, and kept short to provide a flexible foundation for instructors, The Basics of American Politics covers all the terms and topics a student will need to understand the nuts-and-bolts of American government and politics. This title uses a dynamic game metaphor to engage students in the basics of the American political system and the contact sport of politics. Beginning with a clear definition of politics, it introduces four governmental and four nongovernmental “players” who must abide by the “rules of the game” established by the Constitution and civil liberties.
It ends by examining rival theories of who wins and who loses in American politics. This book was assigned for me to read by my Introduction to American Government professor. It's pretty darn awful. I'm not a far right-winger, but the reviews the 14th edition of the book received complaining about this (are accurate. Basically, if a Democrat did it the author provides praise and if a Republican did it. Well, he's evil. That's simply unforgivable in a book that's supposed to be an introduction to the 'basics of American politics,' even from the standpoint of a liberal.
If a professor assigns this at the beginning of a class and you value a bipartisan look at history you may want to consider dropping the class. Aside from the partisan stuff, it's a rather unclear text.
American Politics Today
The author is verbose. He often writes paragraphs to explain something when a sentence or two would do. The actual substance of this book, when removed, could probably fit into 50 - 100 pages instead of the 300 the author fills. He sometimes cites conflicting statistics and interprets them in confusing ways.
The Basics Of American Politics 15th Edition
In short: hard-left leaning, inconsistent and verbose. There's not much here.