Introducing Public Administration

by Jay M. Shafritz, E.W. Russell

Provides a conceptual foundation for those who want to understand the inner workings of public sector administration. Public administration.

Genres: Textbooks, Reference

570 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1996

Reviews

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very informative. Great basics for Public Administration. Organized well. Learned many different cultural reasons why some things are the way they are today.

My issue with the book is no matter the time of day I fell asleep after a few pages. There was so much in each chapter to remember. The chapter sometime ran up to 40+ pages. Not like fiction reading where you can get sucked in and not realize how long the chapter was. This was slogging through rice paddies at times.

What turned it around for me was adding background noise. Football or music. Reading went much faster and I stayed awake.

Three stars because it did its job in a manner that didn't engage me until the end.

[Alǝx Anton · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is horrible scholarship by someone who, by writing an introductory textbook for an entire discipline, should be an expert.

Incredible amount of bias, silly (and inaccurate) metaphors, arduous, and overall a terrible read. Ironically, in one of my other MPA classes, we are discussing how public administration has not always been taken seriously as a distinct field. This book serves up a good argument for that!

[Danica Midlil · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow, I'm not even 20 pages in and the authors have already made fun of Ayn Rand and libertarianism. This is going to be a Really annoying text book to read. Great.

Yup, hated it. Only consolation is that I didn't read much of it. Pbbbbbt!

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good introductory book for public administration students. Took me awhile to get into it, but once you become accustomed to their style of writing it's very good.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was dated (2009) so they had no clue what was going to happen to our government post-2016, but as a textbook it was pretty good. I actually had some LOL moments, but that could just be me being weird. They really like Woodrow Wilson a lot and don't really mention his efforts to deny women the vote. I thought that was strange for a book published in 2009.

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Will continue to use for intro course even though there are some organizational issues as far as content.

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boring to read. My professor described this as the best of what’s out there. Because of his description, I gave it the second star. We barely used it.

[Sidney Mariano · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I have a hard copy so I can do well in school.

[Mugheri]

i want administration books

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hated this book. Incredibly biased, ignorant and poorly written - I wanted to take an ice pick to my eyeballs for being forced to read it, and thankful that I was able to get away with not reading much of it.

[Booker · Rating 2 out of 5]

Who doesn't want to read a book about organizational theory (unless forced)?

[Chelsea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, it's my professor's recommendation. But after finished it, I don't really like it.