Democracy Under Pressure: An Introduction to the American Political System

By Milton C. Cummings Jr. and David Wise

Book Overview

A political science text for the 21st Century, DEMOCRACY UNDER PRESSURE ALTERNATE, with no policy chapters, has provided well over a million students with a comprehensive look at the fundamentals of American Government. Milton Cummings, a respected scholar and academic, and David Wise, a best selling author and political analyst, bring their talents to bear on a text that conveys a balanced, realistic guide to American politics while describing the institutions of American government. In this edition, the theme of "democracy under pressure" is highlighted more fully in the narrative and in the boxed features that focus students on the way democracy responds to needs and demands of various groups over time. The text includes a discussion of the systems approach - a framework of analysis that discusses the political process in terms of inputs and outputs - as well as a key question and related questions to consider in each chapter. DEMOCRACY UNDER PRESSURE focuses throughout on the gap that exists between rhetoric and reality in government today. Streamlined content in this edition makes the book even more accessible and appealing to students and instructors alike.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 015503197X
• ISBN13: 9780155031975
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Harcourt College Pub
• Length: 248 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 11.0" x 0.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

For a textbook, this is amazing.

For a textbook, this has to be the best one around on the topic. I had to get it for intro to U.S. govt and found it to be astonishingly interesting for what it was. There's really not much more to say. It's relevant, uses numerous up-to-date examples (if you have the 2004 election update edition), AND is easy to read. There's not much more to be asked from a textbook on the generally boring subject of government. I couldn't imagine having a better book for a college course.

Good but Long

I was surprised at how interesting this book made government. It's not boring like so many other college text books are. There are lots of examples that explain concepts in an interesting way, and there are little side stories about our country's history.Although this book is interesting the chapters are soooo long. I used this book for a 3 week summer government course and the long chapters nearly killed me. I found that I could skip the introduction to each chapter which saved me a whole page of reading. Also, I could sometimes read the first and last paragraph of a section and get the point of the section without having to read all the examples of an issue. The end of the chapter summaries are good, and very usefull to studying for exams.

Uses a lot of examples

I used this text as a course textbook for a college class last semester. One of the good things about this book is that it contains a LOT of examples about every topic concerning government that is discussed in the book. One of the bad things that I've found however, is that these examples make the book very tedious - if you are just trying to get straight information (ie: to learn from), and you want to do it quickly, I would not recommend this book; however, if you are seeking to learn, and you learn best by seeing real-life examples, then this is the book for you, for it has plenty of those! Personally, I found it a little too much, but I realize that this is just my opinion, so I don't knock the book at all.

Democracy Under Pressure

was a good book, a very interesting college course. This book was easy to read and follow.

Long Examples

The format of this book is straight forward, and easy to comprehend. Unfortunately, the beginning of many chapters proved to be long and tedious before actually getting into the workings of government. Although the examples were necessary to illustrate daily workings of government, they could have been cut back.