Democracy Under Pressure: An Introduction to the American Political System - Softcover

Cummings, Milton C.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0155173316 ISBN 13: 9780155173316

Publisher: Harcourt, 1989

Synopsis

A political science text for the 21st Century, DEMOCRACY UNDER PRESSURE has provided well over a million students with a comprehensive look at the fundamentals of American Government. Milton Cummings, a respected scholar and academic, and David Wise, a best selling author and political analyst, bring their talents to bear on a text that conveys a balanced, realistic guide to American politics while describing the institutions of American government. In this edition, the theme of "democracy under pressure" is highlighted more fully in the narrative and in the boxed features that focus students on the way democracy responds to needs and demands of various groups over time. The text includes a discussion of the systems approach - a framework of analysis that discusses the political process in terms of inputs and outputs - as well as a key question and related questions to consider in each chapter. DEMOCRACY UNDER PRESSURE focuses throughout on the gap that exists between rhetoric and reality in government today. Streamlined content in this edition makes the book even more accessible and appealing to students and instructors alike.

About this title

About the Author

MILTON C. CUMMINGS, JR. (Ph.D. Harvard University) is an award-winning educator who received his undergraduate degree from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. After two years of graduate study in England, where he was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, he earned a Ph.D. in political science at Harvard University. Professor Cummings worked for six years at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., where he did research and writing on American government and politics. He then joined the political science faculty at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, where he is currently professor emeritus. At Johns Hopkins he has been honored with numerous awards. These include the George Owen Teaching Award, the Edward H. Griffin Award, and several other citations for outstanding teaching. He has also received fellowships and grants for research from the Social Science Research Council, the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation.

David Wise is a political writer based in Washington. He is the author or coauthor of ten books on government and politics and is a leading writer on intelligence, espionage, and government secrecy. His articles have appeared in Vanity Fair, the New York Times Magazine, and many other major publications. He is former chief of the Washington bureau of the New York Herald Tribune, a former Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., and was a regular weekly commentator on CNN for 6 years. For two years he lectured in political science at the University of California at Santa Barbara. His most recent book, SPY: THE INSIDE STORY OF HOW THE FBI'S ROBERT HANSSEN BETRAYED AMERICA (Random House, 2002), received high praise from reviewers. He is also the author of NIGHTMOVER: HOW ALDRICH AMES SOLD THE CIA TO THE KGB FOR $4.6 MILLION (HarperCollins, 1995), which was excerpted in TIME magazine. He is also co-author of THE INVISIBLE GOVERNMENT, a number-one best-seller about the Central Intelligence Agency that has been widely credited with bringing about a reappraisal of the role of the CIA in a democratic society.

Review

"I've used just about very text for the introduction to American government course. . . . The clarity, style, content, and pedagogy of Democracy Under Pressure ranks with the best of them - especially the grace of writing. It is far livelier than one usually finds in such text."

"The key factor why I decided to adopt past and present editions of Cummings and Wise was its readability. . . Other strengths are its stronger institutional chapters and its reliance on systems theory which I view as the best way to explain American politics. . . ."

"I really like the American Past boxes. They are relevant, interesting, sometimes humorous, and always thought-provoking."

Edition details

• Publisher: Harcourt
• Publication date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0155173316
• ISBN 13: 9780155173316
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 6
• Number of pages: 797