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Introductory American Government Textbooks: An Anatomical Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2022

William C. Adams
William C. Adams*
Affiliation:
George Washington University
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Extract

The Fall, 1973, PS contained a remarkable exchange. Stephen Stephens charged that Irish and Prothro's Politics of American Democracy panders to youthful radical chic proclivities, while the beseiged authors responded with dark hints that Stephens is a closet conservative. In this enlightened age, such an embarrassing, albeit stimulating and entertaining, foray is a kind of academic streaking. The time has come for this subject of textbooks to begin to be clothed with systematic empirical data.

Introductory textbooks assume a new level of dramatically increased significance because, as shrewd academic entrepreneurs have observed, “teaching political science” is clearly a growth stock. What with more and more association panels devoted to “teaching,” a special APSA committee, and the new journal Teaching Political Science, we have a wonderful ironic new subject to employ as the discipline continues to pursue what continues to count—publishing. Will the forthcoming articles on intro texts meet the rigorous standards we demand in other fields of political science or will they be of the Stephens—Irish and Prothro variety? In hopes that the former rather than the latter will prevail, herein is offered preliminary research which seeks to put the matter in a proper punctilious perspective.

Type
Research Article
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , Summer 1974 , pp. 260 - 261
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1974

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References

1 Stephen V. Stephens, “Political Values and Professional Values in Conflict: Irish and Prothro's: The Politics of American Democracy”; Irish, Marian D. and Prothro, James W., “Political Values and Professional Values: The Recognition of Conflict in Both as Essential to Education in Political Science,” PS, VI, 4 (Fall, 1973), 400–406.Google Scholar

2 Textbooks will be referenced by citing the first author. Adrian, Charles R. and Press, Charles: American Political Process (2 nd ed.; New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969)Google Scholar; Burns, James and Peltason, Jack: Government by the People (8 th ed.; Basic National Ed.; Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1972)Google Scholar; Carney, John P.: Nation of Change (Scranton, Pa.: Canfield Press: 1972)Google Scholar; Cummings, Milton C. Jr., and Wise, David: Democracy Under Pressure (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971)Google Scholar; Diamond, Martin, Fisk, W.M., and Garfinkel, Herbert: The Democratic Republic (2 nd ed.; Chicago: Rand McNally and Co., 1970)Google Scholar; Carr, Robert K., Bernstein, M.H., Murphy, Walter F., and Danietson, Michael N.: Essentials of American Democracy (6 th ed.; New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, Inc., 1971)Google Scholar; Dye, Thomas R. and Ziegler, L. Harmon Jr.: The Irony of Democracy (Belmont, Calif.: Duxbury Press, 1970)Google Scholar; Ferguson, John H. and McHenry, Dean E.: American Federal Government (10th ed.; New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969)Google Scholar; Irish, Marian and Prothro, James: Politics of American Democracy (5th ed.; Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1971)Google Scholar; Johnson, Claudious O., Ogden, Daniel M. Jr., Castleberry, H. Paul, and Swanson, Thor: American National Government (7 th ed.; New York: T.Y. Crowell, 1970)Google Scholar; Levine, Erwin L. and Cornwell, Elmer E.: An Introduction to American Government (2nd ed.; New York: Macmillan, 1972)Google Scholar; Monsma, Stephen V.: American Politics (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969)Google Scholar; Morian, Robert L.: American Government (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1971)Google Scholar; Sherrill, Robert: Why They Call It Politics (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972)Google Scholar; Woll, Peter and Binstock, Robert H.: America's Political System (New York: Random House, 1972)Google Scholar; Yinger, Jon A. and Zaharopoulous, George K.: United States Government and Politics (San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Co., 1969).Google Scholar

3 Riker, William H.: Democracy in the United States (2nd ed.; New York: Macmillan, 1965).Google Scholar

4 American Political Science Association, Biographical Directory, 1973.

5 For a comparison of seven texts' treatment of the Constitution Convention period and the notion of democracy see Carey, George, “Introductory Textbooks to American Government,” Political Science Reviewer, 1 (Fall, 1971), 154–184.Google Scholar

6 See Lowi's, excellent essay “American Government, 1933–1963: Fission and Confusion in Theory and Research,” American Political Science Review, 58 (September, 1964), 589–599.CrossRefGoogle Scholar