A People's History of the United States, Chapter 24, Zinn Howard - The Clinton Presidency
Book review - 3 pages - Political science
It is no secret that most politicians make vows to the American people in order to get elected and oftentimes they will say certain things to please the public as well. It is one of the reasons politicians have a reputation as manipulators. It is this topic that Zinn starts the chapter off with...
Analysis of Mann and Ornstein prompt - It's even worse than it looks - Views of the authors
Book review - 2 pages - Political science
The book “It's Even Worse than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism” by Norman J. and Thomas E. Mann Ornstein analyses American politics. The books says that today's US congress has come to a congestion state caused by the two...
Effectiveness of Churchill's written and spoken words
Book review - 1 pages - Political science
Messages and intent are often tough to convey through words. Despite the issues some face when pairing words, there are a few gifted individuals that illustrate their point flawlessly through words. Winston Churchill provides an example through his written and spoken words. His most memorable...
Book review: Integrating Islam, political and religious challenges in contemporary France, J. Laurence and J. Vaisse
Book review - 5 pages - Political science
The book is divided in three parts : the first one raises the question of how it is to be Muslim in France. The second part comes to the history of muslims citizens' integration. Finally, the third part focuses on political issues linked with Islam. The authors start by reminding that Islam...
Clifford Geertz, the souk of Sefrou
Book review - 3 pages - Political science
Clifford Geertz was born in 1926. He was an anthropologist who taught at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. He worked on the study of symbols. He made his first studies in Java and Bali between 1960 and 1970. He was also interested in studying Morocco. He published 'The Souk of...
"Cohesion and disintegration in the Wehrmacht during the Second World War" by E. A. Shils & Janowitz, M.
Book review - 4 pages - Political science
The extraordinary military value of the Wehrmacht, in its action and resistance, has often been attributed to the influence of Nazi ideology on the soldiers as its unifying capacity. Many people have seen National Socialism as the driving force of the Wehrmacht. However, according to Shils and...
Analysis of the speeches of nomination of president G.W. Bush
Book review - 17 pages - Political science
The inaugural address of U.S. presidents is symbolic of the moments of political life of this country. They mark the transition from one presidency to another or the re-nomination of a president, in a particular mix of content. They celebrate the greatness of America and its democratic...
'Romania since 1989' by Catherine and Zoe Petre Durandin
Book review - 5 pages - Political science
Catherine and Zoe Petre Durandin question the sense that one gives to democratic transition. Democratic transition in the book is presented as a concept but also as an effective policy implementation. This idea will be the theme of the book and it is structured around the political factor, a...
Democracy Ancient and Modern' by Moses I. Finley
Book review - 15 pages - Political science
"It was the Greeks who discovered not only democracy but also politics, the art of reaching decisions through public discussion, and to obey those decisions as a necessary condition for existence of a social civilization." Posed between paying homage to the great Hellenic legacy and its...
The return of History and the end of dreams
Book review - 5 pages - Political science
In the early 1990s, Fukuyama predicted the End of History. One is witnessing a shift in geopolitics, moving from a unipolar world to a multipolar one, or even bipolar according to Chinese scholars like Jin Carong, special advisor in foreign policy for the Government . As Kagan wrote in his book,...
National Security as an ambiguous symbol, by Arnold Wolfers
Book review - 2 pages - Political science
In this text written in 1952, Arnold Wolfers tries to point out the scope of the concept of national security, its meaning and its various implications as well as the way the states deal, and should deal, with it. We will first clarify the evolution of the notion of national interest, which...
"Does the United Kingdom Still Have a Constitution?" by Anthony King
Book review - 5 pages - Political science
"Does the United Kingdom Still Have a Constitution?" is a book written by Anthony King. It is composed of four chapters based on the Hamly Lectures delivered at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in 2000. The book also contains a short chapter written by John Bridge about the Hamlyn Trust...
Review essay on "Soft Power"
Book review - 2 pages - Political science
Joseph Nye's book titled, “Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics,” heavily showcases the terms hard power and soft power. By Joseph Nye's account, hard power defines itself as being a term in which everyone is familiar with. Hard power, thus, deals with how a country's...
Robert Kagan, "Of Paradise and Power, America and Europe in the New World Order"
Book review - 5 pages - Political science
Robert Kagan's Of Paradise and Power was published in January 2003. The book is in fact an extension of the author's article “Power and Weakness” which appeared in the Policy Review in June 2002. In his book, Kagan presents a very interesting point of view. He shows that, whether...
On patriotism, by John Bolingbroke, 1730-1754
Book review - 3 pages - Political science
This text is the analysis of an extract from the book On Patriotism, written between 1730 and 1754 by John Bolingbroke. Bolingbroke was a politician and thinker: he participated to the political life in Britain and was particularly MP in the Tories' party, Secretary of State and Minister of...
Power and weakness in "American Power in the 21st Century" by Robert Kagan
Book review - 5 pages - Political science
Robert Kagan is a neo-conservative American scholar and political commentator. He was born on September 26th 1958 in Athens. After graduating from Yale University in 1980, he earned a Masters from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a PhD from American University in...
Critical review of Robert Putnam's Making Democracy Work
Book review - 6 pages - Political science
In the 1970s, new representative institutions were created in the twenty regions that make up Italy. The Italian government wanted to bring governance closer to the people, so that 'the citizens of Seveso and Pietrapertosa were now directed to nearby Milan and Potenza rather than distant...
Democracy for the few (chap. 15), Michael Parenti
Book review - 4 pages - Political science
Michael Parenti is a professor of political science at several American universities. He has a PhD in political science from Yale University. He is known for being a progressive activist and a provocative thinker. As such, he wrote numerous books that focused on the American nation, the role of...
The roadmap of 'The Republic'
Book review - 6 pages - Political science
When tackling a text of great literary merit, it is important to remember to approach it in the right way. For instance, if we look to the New Testament of the Bible, while masterfully written, it is not a verbatim moral or ethical code of human behavior. Likewise The Analects of Confucius,...
War and the American Presidency : Arthur Schlesinger
Book review - 4 pages - Political science
War And The American Presidency was written by Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who used to be an adviser for Adlai Stevenson's campaign and a special assistant to President Kennedy . He participated in the founding of Americans for Democratic Action, “America's oldest independent liberal...
Analyse the relationship between state and civil society in Hegel's Philosophie des Rechts
Book review - 7 pages - Political science
Since the 18th century, the contrasted views of the state in the Anglo-Saxon world and in France diverge on the notion of public interest. Both movements of thought frequently oppose the vision of an aggregate of the particular interests of citizens to the general interest of the nation. Hegel,...
"The Last Crusade. Religion and the politics of misdirection" Barbara Victor
Book review - 6 pages - Political science
Barbara Victor is a journalist and a frequent lecturer on women's issues and the Middle East. She worked for CBS television for fifteen years, where she covered the Middle East. Her books include Terrorism, an account of the Lebanon war from 1975 to 1982, A voice of reason: Hasnan Ashrawi and...
