American Politics Today (Essentials Fourth Edition)

Show students how politics really works through a focus on conflict and compromise.

The Essentials Fourth Edition of American Politics Today helps students understand the conflicts and compromises inherent in politics and allows them to practice applying that understanding to the debates and controversies they encounter in the news. With combined public opinion and media chapters, and social and economic policy chapters, this edition is jam-packed with pivotal topics that will help students see how institutions and political processes really work.

William T. Bianco is professor of political science at Indiana University, Bloomington. His research focuses on congressional institutions, representation, and international cooperation in crewed spaceflight. He received his undergraduate degree from SUNY Stony Brook and his MA and Ph.D. from the University of Rochester. He is the author of Trust: Representatives and Constituents and numerous journal articles. His research and graduate students have received funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Council for Eurasian and Eastern European Research. He has served as a consultant to various candidates, political parties, and government agencies. He was also a Fulbright Senior Scholar in Moscow, Russia, during 2011–12.

David T. Canon is professor and department chair of political science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His teaching and research interests focus on American political institutions, especially Congress, and racial representation. He is the author of Actors, Athletes, and Astronauts: Political Amateurs in the United States Congress; Race, Redistricting, and Representation: The Unintended Consequences of Black Majority Districts (winner of the Richard F. Fenno Prize); The Dysfunctional Congress? (with Kenneth Mayer); and various articles and book chapters. He served a term as the Congress editor of Legislative Studies Quarterly. He is an AP consultant and has taught in the University of Wisconsin AP Summer Institute for U.S. Government and Politics since 1997. Professor Canon is the recipient of a University of Wisconsin Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award.