What you never learned in graduate school

Sample

Steve Freeman and Joel Bleifuss

According to the official count—the number of votes tallied, not necessarily the number of votes cast—George W. Bush beat Kerry by a margin of three million votes. The exit polls, however, had predicted a margin of victory for Kerry of five million votes. Occurences of vote manipulation, vote suppression, and outright election fraud were alleged at the local level in many precincts throughout Ohio and other "battleground" states. Where the controversy of the 2000 presidential election had come about as the result of an extremely close race, in 2004 the irregularities were widespread and appeared to follow a clear pattern. Why then did the Democrats concede the election early the next morning? Why has there been no investigation by any major news organization? What does it say about our democracy when the slot machine industry is more strictly regulated than our electronic voting machines? Freeman and Bleifuss analyze the available data, and attempt to answer the question of whether America's sitting president was inaugurated after winning, or losing the 2004 presidential race. – from publisher description.

Sample

Maxime Rodinson

In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, Maxime Rodinson's Marxist analyses of contemporary politics and economics in the Muslim world are more salient than ever. In this collection, Rodinson emphasizes the economic and political, rather than religious, characteristics of Islam, covering topics like the history of the Marxist movement in the Islamic Middle East; the dialogue between socialism and Islam, and Marxism and Arab nationalism; the relationship between national conflicts and class struggle, and the history of communism in Arab states such as Syria and Egypt. Unashamedly political and polemical, Rodinson offers an insightful picture of political Islam and Marxism, and their profound implications for the Arab working class and the future of the region.--

Sample

Charlotte Bretherton and Michael Mannin

"This book presents a comparative perspective to the study of European politics, focusing on the unique and transformative effect of European Union on the politics of its member states - in effect, the Europeanization of European politics. For no other world region is there a similar intensity of Treaty and other obligations on a set of neighboring states, nor a comparable depth of of supranational governance. The concept of Europeanism as an evaluative theme is used to explore this unique, sui generis, region, its states, and its political transformation in the 21st century."--Publisher's website.

Sample

Edward Luce

Luce diagnoses factors behind the country's waning global leadership such as the shrinking middle class; an ineffective and flawed educational system; the stagnation of innovation in business and technology; a bloated and inefficient bureaucracy; the virulent polarization of national politics; and the damage caused by the influence of money in politics, along with endless campaigning. In the end, he assesses the prospects for change and offers a bleak outlook.