"In the vein of On Tyranny and How Democracies Die, the bestselling author of Republic, Lost argues that our democracy no longer represents us and shows that reform is both necessary and possible"--

“The Political Brain” is a groundbreaking investigation into the role of emotion in determining the political life of the nation. For two decades Drew Westen, professor of psychology and psychiatry at Emory University, has explored a theory of the mind that differs substantially from the more "dispassionate" notions held by most cognitive psychologists, political scientists, and economists-and Democratic campaign strategists. The idea of the mind...

As Democrats and Republicans continue to vie for political advantage, Congress remains paralyzed by partisan conflict. That the last two decades have seen some of the least productive Congresses in recent history is usually explained by the growing ideological gulf between the parties, but this explanation misses another fundamental factor influencing the dynamic. In contrast to politics through most of the twentieth century, the contemporary Democratic...

"Even in this precarious moment for American democracy, the institutions of American federalism-that is, state governments-remain almost universally lauded. For many, the present era of national partisan polarization makes local politics even more appealing. The truth about federalism in this polarized age, however, is a bit more concerning, as Grumbach details. As the state level has become an increasingly important site of public policies that affect...

Encyclopedia of Evolution, Revised Edition contains hundreds of entries that span modern evolutionary science and the history of its development. This comprehensive volume clarifies many common misconceptions about evolution, including whether the process of evolution has been observed; biological evidence from DNA; and whether any "missing links" have been found.

"Robert Ross addresses a fascinating and unresolved constitutional question: why did political parties emerge so quickly after the framers designed the Constitution to prevent them? The text of the Constitution is silent on this question. Most scholars of the subject have taken that silence to be a hostile one, arguing that the adoption of the two-party system was a significant break from a long history of antiparty sentiments and institutional design...

George Washington's vision was a presidency free of party, a republican, national office that would transcend faction. That vision would remain strong in the administrations of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and John Quincy Adams, yet largely disappear under Andrew Jackson and his successors.This book is a comprehensive and pathbreaking study of the early presidency and the ideals behind it. Ralph Ketcham examines the...

A former congressman draws on his first-hand experience with legislative battles to present a solution-based, practical way to break the stranglehold of the political party system and banish the negative effects of partisan warfare.

In this sweeping look at American politics from the Depression to the present, Doug McAdam and Karina Kloos argue that party politics alone is not responsible for the mess we find ourselves in. Instead, it was the ongoing interaction of social movements and parties that, over time, pushed Democrats and Republicans toward their ideological margins, undermining the post-war consensus in the process . . . In Deeply Divided, McAdam and Kloos depart from...

How partisan politics lead to the Civil War What brought about the Civil War? Leading historian Michael F. Holt convincingly offers a disturbingly contemporary answer: partisan politics. In this brilliant and succinct book, Holt distills a lifetime of scholarship to demonstrate that secession and war did not arise from two irreconcilable economies any more than from moral objections to slavery. Short-sighted politicians were to blame. Rarely looking...