Notes from the Editor

Extract

Because I spend so much time reviewing potential APSR articles, it pains me to admit what is undeniably true: that a great deal of the important intellectual work in our discipline comes packaged not as journal articles, but as books. Many disciplines help their members stay abreast of new books in their field by maintaining “official” single-purpose book review journals. In political science, this function has long been performed by the APSR, which despite its name is primarily an outlet for research, not for reviews. That long-standing arrangement is about to change, for book reviews will bid farewell to the APSR after the current issue. Hereafter, the book review section, which has occupied approximately one-third of our pages, will migrate to the APSA's new journal, Perspectives on Politics, where it will reappear in volume 1, number 1, in March 2003. Gone from the APSR but not forgotten will be the invaluable contributions made by book review co-editors Susan Bickford and Gregory McAvoy, the long line of APSR book review editors who preceded them, and, of course, the thousands of scholars who over the years have taken on the thankless (and often cursed at) task of writing book reviews for the APSR. The APSR, sans book reviews, will continue to be published on a quarterly basis, but beginning in 2003, our new cover dates will be February, May, August, and November.