Approaching Democracy, Portfolio Edition

by Larry Berman, Bruce Allen Murphy

This concise paperback introduces the basics of American government, structured around democracy as an ideal toward which we continually strive. Thematically organized, it prepares readers to review events in the context of this goal. This book prepares readers to be good citizens, armed with the information they will need to follow politics and make educated choices about leaders, policies, and actions. Cases and real-world examples reflect current trends and events such as: Tom Ridge and the Homeland Security Council, the War on Terrorism and Anti-Terrorism Bill, Anthrax and the US Postal Service, Dick Cheney as the new VP, Census 2000, the Enron scandal, Military tribunals, Senator Jeffords party switch, the Supreme Court and the 2000 Presidential Election, 2002 Congressional elections, governments in the Islamic world, and much more. Topics also address the multiple processes of formulating, implementing, and evaluating public policy and the democratic ideal. For anyone wanting to arm themselves with the information needed to make educated political decisions and choices.

Genres: Textbooks, Political Science, Reference

576 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1995

About the author

Larry Berman (PhD, Princeton) is Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Davis, and founding Dean of the Georgia State Honors College.

His books include Zumwalt: The Life and Times of Admiral Elmo Russell "Bud" Zumwalt Jr. (2012), Perfect Spy: The incredible Double Life of Pham Xuan An (2007), No Peace, No Honor (2001), Lyndon Johnson War: The Road to Stalemate in Vietnam (1989), and Planning A Tragedy: The Americanization of the War in Vietnam (1982). Berman is currently researching for his next book, A Slow Walk with Death: The Lingering Effects of Agent Orange.

Reviews

[Paige · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a lot of garbage. It had tons of typos (things like double commas,, misplaced apostrophe's, spaces in between words and punctuation , misspellnigs on almost every page). But more importantly (to me), it contained factual inaccuracies and partial truths, things that you might catch if you're vigilant & thinking critically but would probably wash over you otherwise. It's a college textbook and it's just inexcusable to fill a textbook for a required course--often the only course that a given student will take on our government--with that kind of trash. I feel like this wouldn't happen so much if there wasn't a huge rush to get out THE NEXT EDITION OMG or something.

Anyway, I gave it two stars because I bought it with scholarship money and when the class was over I was able to sell it for $70 and I bought myself an awesome fountain pen and a set of Beatrix Potter postcards with that money, so I associate this book with free fountain pens & postcards, which are some of my favorite things...