What You Should Know About Politics . . . But Don't: A Nonpartisan Guide to the Issues That Matter

While this book contains a lot of very valuable background information about how American government and politics work, its discussion of issues is seriously out of date. Although the reasons why are perfectly understandable, it is not fair for the publisher to continue putting out another edition of the work every four years without performing the serious overhaul the book now would require. As a result, readers would be better served by purchasing used copies of the 2012 edition of the book. Very little of it appears to have been changed since then.How this book came to be neglected in the fashion it has been is easily explained: Its author is not a professional political scientist, and she simply has moved on to other things. The only real mystery is why, apart from a pure profit motive, the publisher did not simply stop at the 2012 edition.The author is the very bright, very talented, and exceedingly well educated daughter - and only child - of former US senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) and his first wife, Pam Schafer (who herself is the daughter of a former governor of North Dakota). Since the book originally was published in 2008, Ms. Conrad presumably wrote it in or around 2007, when she would have been in her late twenties. (That's why the endorsement of Barack Obama on the cover actually is not that of PRESIDENT Barack Obama, it's that of SENATOR Barack Obama, who at the time was a senate colleague of the author's father preparing for, or already engaged in, the 2008 presidential campaign.)All of this is perfectly fine. For what it is, the book is excellent, particularly at providing important background information. If I were a sitting United States senator and my daughter had written this book, I would be a very proud man indeed. It is a work that fully deserves all of the accolades it originally received.This is the point, however, at which we go off the rails.The first line in the book's preface reads, "I'm surprised that nobody has written this book before me." Although that’s a very engaging entrée, this reviewer does not share the author’s surprise, for one very simple reason: The amount of time necessary to keep this book up to date would be more than a full-time job.The reality is that others actually HAVE written this book before – or certainly others that are an awful lot like it: Much of the work’s basic content mirrors that of numerous textbooks written for college-level American government and politics courses that are a staple of undergraduate curricula at institutions across the United States. It’s not hard to find them.The main thing that actually DOES make this book different is the seriously in-depth presentation it provides of several substantive political issues. While that fact gave the book currency and real value in 2008, it was value of a sort that rapidly erodes with each passing year in which the book is not comprehensively updated.The problem in this particular case with updating a book that requires full-time updating is that the author already has another full-time job: after writing the book, she moved to New York, got an advanced degree in art history, and appears to have gone to work for a high-end consulting firm of some sort. Her father elected not to run for the senate in 2012 (which may have been a prudent choice for a centrist Democrat, since the North Dakota electorate seems to have steadily drifted to the right and into the red ever since he made that choice). All of this leaves the book essentially orphaned, with no one to undertake the extraordinarily time-consuming task of keeping it up to date.Spelling out the numerous respects in which the book is now out of date would be substantially beyond the scope of this limited review. Suffice it to say that someone who bought this book in 2020 did not need a detailed description of the events leading up to the Gulf wars anywhere nearly as badly as they needed as clear an understanding as they could get of the Mueller report. They didn't need to understand the government's failure to adequately respond to Hurricane Katrina nearly as badly as they did its much more deadly failure to adequately response to the COVID-19 crisis. They needed to understand the identity of Jim Comey a lot more than they did that of Henry Waxman.If the author had been a professional political scientist, as most authors of American government and politics textbooks are, she would have had the time, resources, and support necessary to continuously update the book in the fashion necessitated by the speed of political, economic, and technological developments. She is not, though, and the publisher has not chosen to make the substantial investment that would be required to have someone else do that work.The result is an extremely informative, very well written, very insightful book about American government and politics and American political issues - as they existed a decade ago, not as they exist today. It is a work that continues to have substantial value, particularly for purposes of supplying important background information. Don't buy the 2016 or 2020 editions of this book, though; buy a used copy of the 2012 edition. That way you at least will know that you are consuming dated information for purposes of bettering your background understanding.Finally, if anyone from Arcadia Publishing is reading this, please, PLEASE don't just reprint this same book again in 2024 and call it a fifth edition. Your having done so in 2016 and 2020 were bad enough; doing so again would be a crime.

Most of the content is from the around 2010, but even though the players may have changed and some of the details are different this is a great review of politics in the United States. The author does a good job keeping their review balanced but the preferences do come through based on the framing of what are good or bad options. But over all, this is an excellent review of the different political challenges and options for many of societies requirements in the US. I found this book an excellent information dense review of the Political options in the US from a decade ago. The players may have changed but many of the basic political problems remain the same today. I found the book did an excellent job of giving the details around many of the Political decisions and situations. I found it amazing how many of the situations, I had forgotten. What I found most interesting thing how the different political parties have switched the issues they are focused on and the strategies they use to address them. It seemed to be that some of the Political parties have actually switched the how and what they are focused on, due to the level of detail and information in this book you get a real feel that politics is a dance where partners switch roles from time to time. This book is so information dense, it would really be worth reading the entire book or some sections several times.

Excellent book. I purchased this book with the intention of becoming better acquainted with the pertinent issues of the 2016 election. This desire came about after realizing the extreme degree to which news media force feeds the public the ideas that should concern them. It's as though people have become unable to think for themselves, resulting in deep divides among citizens who otherwise have nearly everything in common over issues of little consequence to their daily lives. I felt myself slipping into this pattern, and so I decided to try and educate myself somewhat on how government really works.To put it simply, I could not put this book down once I began reading. There is a lot of information here and normally that would make it all a bit difficult to absorb and retain. However, I found that this was not the case here, in that much of the information relates to matters that are either popular topics or have received considerable media coverage, and the reading serves to provide the background to these stories that is so often missing in popular understanding of political topics. A perfect example of this is the explanation of events leading up to the Iraq War. I was in junior high school at the time and I remember the mood of the country during that period. I thought I understood how and why popular opinion of the conflict had shifted, but after reading a more comprehensive overview of these events, many of the questions or confusion I had about what went on in that period became obvious. It was like reliving those days with new eyes. This was the case with many of the issues discussed in this book; it was like one continuous stream of "a-ha" moments, which is why although dense, the info was not at all hard to retain.My only critique is the occurrence of two typos, several chapters apart, that make the meanings of a couple of sentences unclear. Both are so obvious however, that it is immediately recognized that a mistake was made.Lastly, I have to commend the author for maintaining a neutral, very academic perspective throughout the book. There is no political slant whatsoever. The author manages to present each issue from all points of view equally and without criticism. Where popular criticism of a piece of legislation or a political position is discussed, it is discussed from the perspective of each party with the respective positions of that party outlined without bias.Everyone should be required to read this book (or listen to it read) before they are allowed to vote. I think many people have no idea what their chosen political parties' ideologies and beliefs actually are. When you read the totality of its official platform and see the evidence of those beliefs presented in the form of somewhat obscure but nonetheless significant legislation supported by the elected officials of the organization, it can be something of a wake-up call as to the importance of being an informed voter. I was surprised that some of my own beliefs don't match those of my party and actually found some of my ideas being challenged numerous times as I read. The nuances of these belief systems are critical to the effects that policy decisions will have on voters' lives. I was unaware of the degree to which this is true before this book. I walked away wondering whether it is actually possible to be well informed and still identify wholely with a single political party as most people do.

Loin d'un pamphlet politique, c'est une sorte de manuel de l'usager de la politique américaine, avec un effort louable pour présenter le bon et le mauvais des diverses institutions, pratiques et idéologies. M'a surtout été utile pour comprendre ce qui se passait à la fin de l'ère Trump.

Verry good explanation of all politic department!Really help understand where each parti stand.I recommend that book to anyone!

I chose my 5 rating because I never felt that I was being guided. I like to make up my own mind, once I have as much information as possible from all perspectives. This book delivered!

Good introduction to contemporary policy issues. However, it is misleading to claim that the book is updated every four years. The last meaningful update of the book dates back from 2012 and recent developments are clearly missing and should be added (e.g. Clean Power Plan, SCOTUS decisions on gay marriage...).