Customer Service : Public Affairs : Political rights. Practical politics : United States

In Votes For Women, Jean H. Baker has assembled an impressive collection of new scholarship on the struggle of American women for the suffrage. Each of the eleven essays illuminates some aspect of the long battle that lasted from the 1850s to the passage of the suffrage amendment in 1920. From the movement's antecedents in the minds of women like Mary Wollstonecraft and Frances Wright, to the historic gathering at Seneca Falls in 1848, to the civil disobedience during World War I orchestrated by the National Woman's Party, the essential elements of this tumultuous story emerge in these finely-tuned chapters. So too do the themes and historical controversies about suffrage and its leaders, including Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth, and Alice Paul. Contributors focus on how the suffrage battle was interwoven with constitutional issues at the federal and state level and how the suffrage struggle played out in different regions, especially the West and the South, as well as the activities of opponents to women's voting. Baker's introductory essay sets the stage for revisiting suffrage by making explicit the similarities and differences in interpretations of suffrage and shows how the movement intersected with other events in American history and cannot be studied in isolation from them. This volume is essential reading for those interested in American politics and women's formal participation in it.  more...

Price: $30.00

John Gastil challenges conventional assumptions about public opinion, elections, and political expression in this persuasive treatise on how to revitalize the system of representative democracy in the United States. Gastil argues that American citizens have difficulty developing clear policy interests, seldom reject unrepresentative public officials, and lack a strong public voice. more...

Price: $15.95

This handbook provides a sweeping overview of U.S. campaign and election reform efforts, past and present, from the introduction of the secret ballot to touch-screen voting. more...

Price: $55.00

In this book, two leading experts on community action provide the first scholarly examination of the civic renewal movement that has emerged in the United States in recent decades. Sirianni Friedland examine civic innovation since the 1960s as social learning in four arenas (community organizing/development, civic environmentalism, community health, and public journalism), and they link local efforts to broader networks and to the development of "public policy for democracy. more...

Price: $15.95

Inspired by their popular USA Today column, conservative Cal Thomas and liberal Bob Beckel show politicians of both stripes how to get beyond partisanship, restore civility, and move our country forward. Thomas and Beckel are a unique pair in today's political climate—pundits from opposite sides who not only talk to each other but work together to find common ground on some of the most divisive issues facing us, from the war in Iraq to gay marriage to the Patriot Act. Common Ground unmasks the hypocrisy of many of the issues, organizations, and individuals who created and deepened the partisan divide at the center of American politics, and makes a strategic case for why this bickering must stop. Throughout, Thomas and Beckel explode conventional wisdom and offer surprising new conclusions:.:.; The Red State/Blue State divide: Myth!.; A "common ground" presidential candidate can win in 2008: Reality!.; "Polarizers" like Ann Coulter and Michael Moore are the future of political debate: Myth!.; Major-party politics faces extinction: Reality!. These guys should know. For years Beckel and Thomas contributed to the climate of polarization in Washington . . . and they admit it. "We're two guys who spent a lot of years in the polarizing business, but on opposing sides," they write. "We helped write the game plan, and we have participated in everything from getting money out of true believers to appearing on television to help spread the contentious message. In many cases, we wrote the message. We know the gig, and it's just about up.". In this much-needed book, Thomas and Beckel go beyond their column to offer a sobering overview of the current political divide and its corrosive effect on us all.They also explain how bipartisanship and consensus politics are not only good for the day-to-day democratic process but essential for our nation's future well-being. Entertaining and informative, funny and healing, Common more...

Price: $10.99