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Politics Primer

direstraits

direstraits

Well-Known Member
I'm looking for some good primers on politics. General stuff, nothing too deep please. I'm a newbie in this domain, and would appreciate any recommendations. Just looking to diversify my reading.

Thanks! :)

ds
 
How about Jon Stewart's A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction. If you watch the Daily Show on Comedy Central you might like this book. It pokes fun at democracy as it is today meanwhile explaining how it works very well.
 
Thanks for the reply, ecks... there wasn't any takers for this thread for so long I thought I had to reread my An Introduction to Politics over and over again.

I'll check it out, though I'm not sure if Stewart is a little too biased for a newbie like me...

ds
 
Surprisingly, he's not biased much at all. He skewers both sides equally! :D Are you specifically looking at political primers for the United States, or the world as a whole?
 
World as a whole, but I'd read US too. I've already got Bill's My Life in my To Get List, hoping to get a glimpse of politics from his POV.

What I'm looking for may fall also into World History, but some insights into some of the decisions that made (or making) the world it is today should be quite interesting reading.

Does Stewart talks about Republicans also or Democrats only?

ds
 
direstraits said:
World as a whole, but I'd read US too. I've already got Bill's My Life in my To Get List, hoping to get a glimpse of politics from his POV.

What I'm looking for may fall also into World History, but some insights into some of the decisions that made (or making) the world it is today should be quite interesting reading.

Does Stewart talks about Republicans also or Democrats only?

ds
Click to expand...

Okay, let me put my thinking cap on and I'll see what I can come up with. Stewart talks about both Republicans and Democrats, with a sharp edge of humor on both sides. Don't know if you've ever watched his "Daily Show" on the Comedy Channel, but he's pretty fair in his attacks.
 
Sorry, I didn't notice this thread earlier or I would have replied.

It's quite difficult to recommend a single book to such a huge subject but when I was an undergrad, I found the following really useful: Issues in World Politics, edited by Brian White, Richard Little and Michael Smith. I think there was a 2001 edition that would be the most recent. My edition covers issues such as states and statehood, regionalism, development and inequality, nationalism, peacekeeping and the environment. It's quite basic but provides a lot of food for thought.

If this isn't the sort of thing you're looking for, how about thinking about the area of the world you want to begin with and letting me know so I can give you some more suggestions. Good luck :)
 
Clara... oh yes, this is something like what I'm looking for. Just think of me as someone you'd like to introduce politics to, whatever sub section of politics you yourself enjoy or are passionate about (ie. political history, middle-east politics, foreign policy, environmentalism, communism, etc). What books of that nature would appeal to a newbie like me. ecks's recommendation covers American politics. Yours cover world politics in general, pertaining to certain issues. Both are helpful.

Personally, I'm reading up on terrorism, on the history of empires, and general politics (government, constitutions, party system, etc). The general politics book that I have is too textbook-like (i.e. boring), so I'm looking for something else. I intend to dip my toes in as many varied branches of politics until I figure out what I want to concentrate on.

Thanks for your input! :)

ds
 
Well, my main interest is the making of foreign policy and one of my favourite books is "Constructing National Interests: The United Statesw and the Cuban Missile Crisis" by Jutta Weldes (published by the University of Minnesota Press). Weldes offers a comparison and analysis of the Crisis from the US, Cuban and Soviet perspectives and how these were represented in the decision-making processes. I found it really thought provoking because it forced me to re-examine common perceptions and the book is easy to read. If you decide to read it, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. :)
 
I thought I'd just update this - I just got Politics: Second Edition by Andrew Heywood. This is even more text-bookish than the one I already have, but at least it covers more things that I'd like to find out more on.

I'm still waiting to get My Life. I've heard Bill Clinton's Keynote Speech at the BookExpo America last year and he put a great spin on it. Oh, and from what he says, there's plenty of politics there too.

ds
 
The Heywood book is very much a textbook but, as you say, it covers quite a bit. One idea is that if you see a reference cited in it for a subject you find interesting, you could then try the referenced book. This is a bit hit and miss so you might want to try libraries rather than buying at first - or buy secondhand.

Good luck with it :)
 
Jared Diamond is the man for this. The link below is to his book Guns, Germs, and Steel. He has a newer book out on how countries choose to fail or succeed.

He looks at global history of politics through a prism that absorbs demographics, geography, natural resources, technology, ecology, and economics as driving forces, so rather than focus on political history as party politics (which is very open to noncontemporaneous interpretations), he looks at the driving mechanisms behind national decision making and political power.

I think if your interest is on global political developments, this sort of discussion may be more on point than something about US national politics or liberals v. conservatives.




http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393317552/qid=1110895572/sr=8-2/ref=pd_csp_2/102-6921999-0861710?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
 
Clara said:
The Heywood book is very much a textbook but, as you say, it covers quite a bit. One idea is that if you see a reference cited in it for a subject you find interesting, you could then try the referenced book. This is a bit hit and miss so you might want to try libraries rather than buying at first - or buy secondhand.

Good luck with it :)
Click to expand...

Thanks all, for your suggestions. Clara, I did try to find some of the books you mentioned, but I seem to keep missing them. I'll probably put a reservation down and have them order it for me. :)

Currently the Heywood book covers what I want to know at this little step I'm taking pretty well. Soon I'll look at relationships between countries, and the dynamics that drive these relationships (North/South Korea, Taiwan/China, Pakistan/India, Middle East, etc).

Other politics stuff I've been swallowing are all American politics, due to the fact that they make so many of it available and easily accessible to everybody, which makes me wonder why my country don't do this (well, I know why, but it doesn't stop me from wanting it).

These material include the 9/11 Commission Hearings and the recent Bush vs Kerry debates.

ds
 
direstraits said:
What I'm looking for may fall also into World History, but some insights into some of the decisions that made (or making) the world it is today should be quite interesting reading.ds
Click to expand...
I second the suggestion by Novella of Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. I'm only part way through, but it is a refreshing look at world history.
 
It's interesting how much history is tied to politics. Everytime I try to learn politics I get a history lesson. It's bloody interesting too, and I just wonder what the heck I've been doing during the Cuban missile crisis.

Wait. I wasn't born yet.

Did I mention I got Animal Farm too?

ds
 
Why won't you read biased works? That's like saying the middle road is the best one; it makes little sense. Anyway, if you can handle the biases of George Orwell, you can handle Noam Chomsky. Read Hegemony or Survival; it has some nice historical tidbits.
 
I think bias gets too much press. Fairness is what I try to look for, and that's very different from lack of bias. But you didn't ask for us to get up on a soapbox so. . .

Anything by Bob Woodward will be pretty solid and readable. Plan of Attack was recommended reading by both the Bush and Kerry campaigns, so evidently they both felt it was an honest presentation of the build up to the Iraq War. Shadow: some-other-stuff-I've-forgotten-after-the-colon was very good as well. It's about the legacy of Watergate on the Presidency up to Bill Clinton (the book was published during his admin).

Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk by Maureen Dowd was clever and amusing. Straightforward policy disagreement isn't quite her thing, she's a lit lover and a wordsmith, the book deals primarily with the exploitation of imprecise language that this administration seems to rely on, and some themes of the Bush family relations she sees as fitting into Shakespearean type dramas.

The Future of Freedom by Fareed Zakariah is a must read if you feel, like much of the Western World, that self determination is where it's at for a national government. He cuts through the bullshit rhetoric of democracy and "giving them a chance to vote!", and illustrates the actual processes that have to occur for democracy to succeed very eloquently, and what ingredients contribute to the failure of such a system.

Don't forget to add 1984 to your fiction list after Animal Farm.

I have to confess to a fondness for most of Jimmy Carter's books, but that's a sentimental thing as I consider him to be a very personal hero. Of course, few folks agree with me on that so, who knows, but you might enjoy some of his weightier stuff too.

I could add dozens of titles, but I'll rest there.
 
“No Virtue Like Necessity: Realist Thought in International Relations Since Machiavelli" de Jonathan Haslam looked good enough to buy, but I have not read it yet.
 
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