Political Science

by Robert A. Heineman

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 007028203X
• ISBN13: 9780070282032
• Release Date: July 1995
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A good, wide-ranging primer

This short textbook gives a brief, balanced introduction to just about every aspect of political science. I was drawn to this book partly because of the author's passionate opening assertion that "Throughout history the breakdown of political authority has taken a devastating toll in human suffering." I hoped that this strong point of view would be carried through the book and inform the author's explanations of the topics. While I can't exactly say that this was achieved, I can say that he does write from a strong conviction in the importance of politics in the widest sense, and with a sense that all the many aspects and subdisciplines of political science play important parts in this complex, sometimes ill-defined discipline. The text is broken down into five parts, dealing respectively with the traditions of Western political thought, individual and group behavior, government institutions, international politics, and finally an examination of political science itself as a discipline. Each part consists of from two to five short chapters, which are in turn broken into subsections giving short descriptions of the important topics. With the possible exception of part 5 (since I am not a student of academic political science), I found Heineman's survey most relevant to helping my understanding of the political world. To take one example, he covers a lot of ground in a short space as he describes the history of political thought and the thinking behind liberalism, Marxism, and conservatism. After a lifetime of reading newspapers and magazines, I felt for the first time that I was discovering what the core outlooks and ideas are behind the politics of the left and right, and why the various positions on the spectrum think as they do. Heineman's writing style can be a little academic and wordy, and sometimes, in his zeal for balance, he gives the impression of trying almost too hard to see value in points of view that he clearly doesn't agree with (for example, postmodernism), but over all his interest in and respect for the discipline carries the day. Also, my copy, published in 1996, is a bit dated--although this is not important for a primer. The brevity of the individual subsections, which are almost like encyclopedia entries, also helps speed the reader along. In sum, it is a wide, concise survey that lets you see the whole field in one text, so that you can decide which areas of the discipline you might want to examine further. At the very least, after reading this you should be able to get much more out of news stories.