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Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in World Politics
1994 Instructor's Teaching and Testing Suggestions for Rourke's Taking Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in World Politics Fifth Edition (TE)(P) by John T. Rourke *** 9781561342600 ***35 Pages
374 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 6, 2014
Some of the choices for sides clearly show the editor's bias on issues. Though some of the choices were good, it was disappointing to see that some arguments were not well represented.
June 27, 2007
It breaks down a lot of commonly debated topics in world politics and present essays from opposing viewpoints allowing the reader to get both sides' information and decide for him/herself.
February 3, 2013
This book helped me look at politics differently.
April 21, 2017
I started out really enjoying this book for an International Relations course. I thought, what a great way to illustrate two sides of the major issues. But as I continued, I became more and more disillusioned with the content. The format is perfect: summarize the issue, give the two sides, discuss whether there is common ground. But the actual selections were in some cases so terrible that I don't know if it's a function of the editor's laziness to find anything better, or their bias to under-represent the opposite side.
The final debate we had for class, for example, was over Obama's climate policies. The "for" position was Obama himself giving a speech to the LCV, an already sympathetic audience, for whom he did not have to - and did not - present a convincing argument full of data. The opposing argument, even though made by a man who thinks snowballs mean there is no such thing as global warming, was full of data, costs in dollars, and so forth. There was simply no comparison of apples to apples because the speakers were not countering each other's arguments. It was impossible to say one was more convincing than the other. I found this with several of the arguments and it actually made me quite angry at the book by the end. It is hard to say whether this was a function of the editor trying to convince us there is no such thing as global warming and regulations are harmful, or if it was because they were too lazy to find an actually relevant counterpoint.
The final debate we had for class, for example, was over Obama's climate policies. The "for" position was Obama himself giving a speech to the LCV, an already sympathetic audience, for whom he did not have to - and did not - present a convincing argument full of data. The opposing argument, even though made by a man who thinks snowballs mean there is no such thing as global warming, was full of data, costs in dollars, and so forth. There was simply no comparison of apples to apples because the speakers were not countering each other's arguments. It was impossible to say one was more convincing than the other. I found this with several of the arguments and it actually made me quite angry at the book by the end. It is hard to say whether this was a function of the editor trying to convince us there is no such thing as global warming and regulations are harmful, or if it was because they were too lazy to find an actually relevant counterpoint.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews