We the People: An Introduction to American Politics (Eighth Essentials Edition)

Politics is relevant.

The best book for engaging students in American politics is also the most effective for helping students study and learn. We the People emphasizes the ways that government and politics matter and the ways that people can get involved in politics and influence government.

Based on the market-leading full-length text, We the People, Essentials Edition, offers authoritative treatment of the core topics in American politics. Key features from the full edition―such as the “What Government Does and Why It Matters” chapter introductions and “Get Involved” boxes―offer a proven way to highlight relevance and participation within a more streamlined pedagogical program. In the Essentials Eighth Edition an innovative new design and expanded review materials help students engage and succeed in the course.

Benjamin Ginsberg is the David Bernstein Professor of Political Science and Chair of the Center for Advanced Governmental Studies at the Johns Hopkins University. He is the author or coauthor of 25 books, including Presidential Power: Unchecked and Unbalanced; Downsizing Democracy: How America Sidelined Its Citizens and Privatized Its Public; Politics by Other Means; The Consequences of Consent; The Worth of War; and The Captive Public. Ginsberg received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1973. Before joining the Hopkins faculty in 1992, Ginsberg was Professor of Government at Cornell. His most recent books are The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All-Administrative University and Why It Matters; What the Government Thinks of the People; and Analytics, Policy and Governance.

Theodore J. Lowi has been John L. Senior Professor of American Institutions at Cornell University since 1972. He was elected President of the American Political Science Association in 1990 and was cited as the political scientist who made the most significant contribution to the field during the decade of the 1970s. Among his numerous books are The End of Liberalism and The Pursuit of Justice, on which he collaborated with Robert F. Kennedy.

Margaret Weir is Professor of Sociology and Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. She has written widely on social policy in Europe and the United States. She is the author of Politics and Jobs: The Boundaries of Employment Policy in the United States and coauthor (with Ira Katznelson) of Schooling for All: Class, Race, and the Decline of the Democratic Ideal. Weir has also edited (with Ann Shola Orloff and Theda Skocpol) The Politics of Social Policy in the United States.

Robert J. Spitzer is Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at The State University of New York at Cortland. He is the author of 15 books, focusing in particular on the presidency, gun policy, and the Constitution. Spitzer's books include The Presidential Veto; President and Congress; The Presidency and the Constitution (with Michael Genovese); The Politics of Gun Control; The Right to Bear Arms; and Saving the Constitution from Lawyers. His most recent book is Guns Across America. He is also a regular contributor to the Huffington Post and many newspapers.