Democracy Under Pressure: An Introduction to the American Political System: 2006 Election Update

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 2006 election year update edition, the theme of "democracy under pressure" is highlighted fully in the narrative and in the boxed features. 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.

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.