About the Book
Keeping the Republic draws students into the study of American politics, showing them how to think critically about "who gets what, and how" while exploring the twin themes of power and citizenship. Throughout the text and its features, authors Christine Barbour and Gerald C. Wright reveal how to effectively apply critical thinking skills to the political information encountered every day.
With students living through one of the most challenging periods in American life, the Twelfth Edition is a much-needed resource to help them make sense of politics in America today and become savvy consumers of political information.
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Table of Contents:
1. Politics: Who Gets What, and How?
2. American Citizens and Political Culture
3. Politics of the American Founding
4. Federalism and the U.S. Constitution
5. Fundamental American Liberties
6. The Struggle for Equal Rights
7. Congress
8. The Presidency
9. The Bureaucracy
10. The American Legal System and the Courts
11. Public Opinion
12. Political Parties
13. Interest Groups
14. Voting, Campaigns, and Elections
15. Media, Power, and Political Communication
16. Social and Environmental Policy
17. Economic Policy
18. Foreign Policy
About the Author :
Christine Barbour teaches in the Political Science Department at Indiana University, and directs the department’s IU POLS DC internship program. She is a faculty liaison for the University’s dual-credit program, which delivers an online version of her Intro to American Politics class to high school students across the state. At Indiana, Professor Barbour has been a Lilly Fellow, working on a project to increase student retention in large introductory courses, and a member of the Freshman Learning Project, a university-wide effort to improve the first-year undergraduate experience. She has served on the New York Times College Advisory Board, working with other educators to develop ways to integrate newspaper reading into the undergraduate curriculum. She has won multiple teaching honors, but the two awarded by her students mean the most to her: the Indiana University Student Alumni Association Award for Outstanding Faculty and the Indiana University Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists Brown Derby Award. When not teaching or writing textbooks, Professor Barbour enjoys traveling with her coauthor, blogging about food and travel, and playing with her dogs and cat. She contributes to Bloom Magazine of Bloomington and is a coauthor several cookbooks. She also makes jewelry from precious metals and rough gemstones. If she ever retires, she will open a jewelry shop in a renovated Airstream on the beach in Apalachicola, Florida, where she plans to write another cookbook and a book about the local politics, development, and fishing industry.
Gerald C. Wright taught political science at Indiana University from 1981 until his recent retirement. An accomplished scholar of American politics, and the 2010 winner of the State Politics and Policy Association’s Career Achievement Award, his work includes Statehouse Democracy: Public Opinion and Policy in the American States (1993), coauthored with Robert S. Erikson and John P. McIver, and more than fifty articles on elections, public opinion, and state politics. Professor Wright’s research interests focus on representation – the fundamental relationship among citizens, their preferences, and public policy. He writes primarily about state politics, representation, political parties, and inequality.
He is currently working on a book about parties and representation in U.S. legislatures. He has been a consultant for Project Vote Smart for a number of years and was a founding member of Indiana University’s Freshman Learning Project. In retirement, Professor Wright grows vegetables, golfs, fishes, travels, and plays with his dogs and cat. He is an awesome cook.
Review :
I have been using Barbour and Wright′s Keeping the Republic in my Introduction to American Politics classes for over a decade, and I will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Keeping the Republic is engaging and approachable, and manages to cover a broad array of complex subjects without watering down the content.
I′ve assigned Barbour and Wright′s book in Intro to American Politics courses taught both at a research-oriented university, as well as at a teaching oriented regional university. Even with very different student bodies, it is a fantastic book for introducing students to the fundamentals of American politics, and then opening the door for in-depth class discussions on topics such as the role of mass media in shaping—and driving—public opinion in the United States. As a former attorney, I also appreciate the realistic overview of the day-to-day functioning of the American legal system!
Responding to Benjamin Franklin′s answer to "what have you wrought", Barbour and Wright expertly provide an outstanding guide for future citizens learning about governance and most importantly citizenship. A readable, logically developed text on American Government, the authors maintain the central theme of "We the People" – citizenship as the guardians of the great experiment. Interspersed with present-day examples, guided primary source analysis, and variant perspectives, Keeping the Republic is the go-to text for challenging students to think critically about every aspect of their government. Overall, an excellent balance of narrative and analytical materials for the emerging and engaged citizen.
In Keeping the Republic, Barbour and Wright present an extremely clear and accessible text for any introductory course on American politics. For the many students who come into the classroom with little preexisting knowledge about how the American political process works or what their place in it is, the text provides them with the core information they need as students and as citizens. The What′s at Stake? features in each chapter help students understand why they should care about what they are reading; and how things like Congress, the courts, and political parties affect their lives and how they just may be able to affect politics themselves.
With a focus on critical thinking, analysis, and evaluation, Keeping the Republic covers the essential topics for an American Politics course by effectively linking history and current events. The What′s at Stake? feature at the beginning and end of each chapter tells a story that brings abstract concepts to life so that students can appreciate how many ways our political system directly connects to their lives. Students also learn how to critically evaluate and analyze issues and political processes, as well as assess the actions taken by those in power.
There are many texts that explain the fundamental theories and concepts associated with American politics. Keeping the Republic not only helps students understand the complexity of the American political system, but it also provides the necessary tools for learning how to be active and engaged members of society.
Keeping the Republic is ideal for my political science courses at my university. Its graphics, charts, and infographics are useful for visual learners, the highlighted key expressions and "definition boxes" allow students to learn the terms lexically and to understand them in context, the supplementary lecture slides help students follow lectures and the tests are the best test teaching aid that saves time.
I had the pleasure of using Keeping the Republic in the American Government courses I taught at the College of Charleston from the fall of 2017 to the spring of 2019. Within a year of the 2016 presidential election, I was able to present students with a textbook containing detailed election content and weaving election results and data analysis together seamlessly with news reports, interviews, photographs, key political concepts, and historical content. Compelling infographics added legibility to the election data presented and kept students engaged by adding real-world context to traditional coverage of government and politics.
Barbour and Wright′s long-standing textbook continually tells the story of American politics in a captivating, fun, and accessible way. I appreciate the detail given to special sections found within each chapter. These include the colorful and descriptive Big Picture inserts that focus students′ attention by displaying foundational concepts including the development of the Constitution, how a bill becomes a law, and the evolution of political parties in an attractive and visual format. The Don′t Be Fooled By features help students to consider important ideas prevalent in today′s digitized political world like big data, clickbait, and public opinion polls.
Keeping the Republic gets top marks in my class for striking a balance between an approachable narrative and supplemental features that allow for reviewing central themes and ideas. It should be considered by all instructors looking to engage students more fully in their classroom.
