Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State: Why Americans Vote the Way They Do - Expanded Edition - Softcover

Gelman, Andrew

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0691143935 ISBN 13: 9780691143934

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2009

Synopsis

On the night of the 2000 presidential election, Americans watched on television as polling results divided the nation's map into red and blue states. Since then the color divide has become symbolic of a culture war that thrives on stereotypes--pickup-driving red-state Republicans who vote based on God, guns, and gays; and elitist blue-state Democrats woefully out of touch with heartland values. With wit and prodigious number crunching, Andrew Gelman debunks these and other political myths.

This expanded edition includes new data and easy-to-read graphics explaining the 2008 election. Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State is a must-read for anyone seeking to make sense of today's fractured political landscape.

About this title

From the Back Cover

"This impressive social science analysis stands much political punditry on its head. So far as voting goes, the question is less why poor Americans are victims of false consciousness than why affluent Americans in wealthy states are traitors to their class."--Morris P. Fiorina, author of Culture War?: The Myth of a Polarized America

"I enjoyed reading this book. I learned a lot about political misconceptions and counterintuitive properties of elections--my view of political data will never be the same."--Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan

"Andrew Gelman has turned his eagle-eyed research on the American voter into an excellent book, Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State. If you ever doubted the value of empirical research, this book will change your mind. It's full of novel, data-driven results."--Bryan Caplan, author of The Myth of the Rational Voter

"The divide in American politics is about more than the ideological distance between the two parties. Through careful statistical analysis, Andrew Gelman solves the mystery of how Democrats can do so well in certain places where rich people live, yet still not be the party of the rich. This book will help people on all sides to see politics more clearly, and it will require all of us to toss many pieces of conventional wisdom into the dustbin."--E. J. Dionne Jr., author of Why Americans Hate Politics

"Occasionally, there are books providing insights into the political process that force a basic change in the way people think about elections. This is one of them. The author makes clear that while North-South or red-blue divides reflect both 'have versus have-not' conflicts and the more recent liberalization of the upscale 'creative class,' the state-by-state reality is much more nuanced and complex. This volume points the way to whole new lines of research and is essential reading for those interested in the future of American political parties."--Thomas Edsall, Columbia University, political editor of the Huffington Post

"Andrew Gelman has been poring over data trying to get at the driving forces at work in American politics. His findings suggest that the divides in America run deep and are linked to an ongoing, internal battle between two increasingly distinct American economies."--Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class

About the Author

Andrew Gelman is professor of statistics and political science at Columbia University. His books include Teaching Statistics: A Bag of Tricks. He received the Presidents' Award in 2003, awarded each year to the best statistician under forty.

About this edition

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0691143935
• ISBN 13: 9780691143934
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 276