general

Using this book for an introductory course. The book is difficult to read; 52+ lines per 9 ½ page!! The entire book is black and white. News photos with loose commentary replace interesting Illustrations and descriptive graphs. Too much opinion on history and not enough comparison and contrast of events, policies, economies, leaders and regimes.

Most difficult was the authors chronology and consistency in maintaining themes. Chronology is confusing. Some chapters begin with current events, continuing with ancient history then switching back to WWII period for example. Also lacking is consistency between chapters. There is limited and discussion of political parties and occasional references to "what you read in the previous chapter" which are the extent of comparisons and contrast of political systems. I though this was to be a book on comparative politics, but this is more of a History book for High School students.

What was my prof thinking when she selected this book?

Using this book for an introductory course @ SUNY Stony Brook. The book is difficult to read; 52+ lines per 9 ½ page!! The entire book is black and white. News photos with loose commentary replace interesting Illustrations and descriptive graphs. Too much historical opinion and too less comparasion & contrast of facts, entities, leaders and political systems.

Most difficult was the authors chronology and consistency in maintaining themes. Chronology is confusing. Some chapters begin with current events, continuing with ancient history then switching back to WWII period for example. Also lacking is consistency between chapters. There is limited and discussion of political parties and occasional refereneces to "what you read in the previous chapter" which are the extent of comparisions and contrast of political systems. I though this was to be a book on comparative politics, but this is more of a History book for High School students.

What was my prof thinking when she selected this book?

I teach AP Government to 12th grade students and this is the book that we use. I have copies of other AP Comparative Pol. texts and this is the best one for high school students in my opinion.

It is organized in an easy-to-understand format with excellent introductory chapters on each of the three major types of countries studied. Each country chapter is written in readable prose with pictures and feature boxes, which helps break up the monotony.

There are some shortcomings, however. Mainly, the book does not pose a lot of real questions that require higher-level thinking. Also, what the chapters are really missing is a concise, simple explanation of the key elements of government (how members are elected, how legislation moves through, etc). These are some of the important facts that students should be familiar with.

To any instructor using this book, I suggest you augment your class notes with information from other texts, such as Theen and Wilson's "Comparative Politics: An Introduction to Seven Countries."