Anyone who writes an introductory American government text faces the challenge of describing and explaining a vast amount of scholarship. One way is to pile fact upon fact and list upon list. It’s a common enough approach but it turns politics into a pretty dry subject. Politics doesn’t have to be dry, and it certainly doesn’t have to be dull. Politics has all the elements of drama, and the added feature of affecting the everyday lives of real people.
The late twentieth century has been a period of extraordinary change in America, which raised new challenges to the practice of government. New people in the millions from Asia and Latin America have joined the American community, bringing with them cultural traditions that have made our society richer and fuller, but also more fragmented and contentious. Traditional institutions, from political parties to families, have weakened dramatically, straining the fabric of our politics but also creating the possibility of adaptive new arrangements. Minorities and women, long denied access to political and economic power, are seeking a fairer share, and sometimes getting it. America’s workers and firms have built a highly productive economy but are now facing the risks and opportunities of the global marketplace. The cold war that dominated our attention in foreign policy for decades has been replaced by ethnic rivalries and localized conflicts that raise troubling new issues of world insecurity that, so far, have defied tidy solutions.
Scholars are trying to keep pace with these changes. Never before has scholarship been so closely tied to the real world. If much of what political scientists study is arcane, we have increasingly connected our work and our thinking to the everyday realities of politics. The result is a clearer and more nuanced understanding of how American government operates. I have tried in this book to convey this advancement in knowledge in an accurate and interesting way.
Thomas E. Patterson is Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press in the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He was previously distinguished professor of political science in the Maxwell School of Citizenship at Syracuse University. Raised in a small Minnesota town near the Iowa and South Dakota borders, he was educated at South Dakota State University and the University of Minnesota, where he received his Ph.D. in 1971.
He is the author of six books and dozens of articles, which focus primarily on the media and elections. His recent book, Out of Order (1994), received national attention when President Clinton said every politician and journalist should be required to read it. An earlier book, The Mass Media Election (1980), received a People's Choice award as Outstanding Academic Book, 1980-1981. Another of Patterson's books, The Unseeing Eye (1976), was recently selected by the American Association for Public Opinion Research as one of the fifty most influential books of the past half century in the field of public opinion.
His current research includes a five-country study of the news media's political role. His work has been funded by major grants from the National Science Foundation, the Markle Foundation, the Smith-Richardson Foundation, and the Ford Foundation.
Email the author at thomas-patterson@harvard.edu
《美国政治文化》中提到美国何以形成以合理的利益竞争为基础的民主政府时,引用了《联邦党人文集》中麦迪逊的论证:如果单个团体强大到足够获得完全的政治控制力,此时的政府就是最危险的。换句话说,美国的政治生活之所以能够保持一种有节制的斗争关系,乃是其巨大的利益多样...
评分《美国政治文化》中提到美国何以形成以合理的利益竞争为基础的民主政府时,引用了《联邦党人文集》中麦迪逊的论证:如果单个团体强大到足够获得完全的政治控制力,此时的政府就是最危险的。换句话说,美国的政治生活之所以能够保持一种有节制的斗争关系,乃是其巨大的利益多样...
评分美国制宪之时,南方各州为了增加自己在众议院的代表名额(美国众院代表以各州人口数为基础按比例设置),希望将奴隶视为完整的人计入人口,但是为了减少税收配额,又企图将奴隶视为非人的财产。结果在南北方漫长的讨价还价之后,终于达成了将奴隶计为“五分之三的人”的妥协。...
评分《美国政治文化》在论及作为政治人的美国人时提到,就选民投票率来看美国人显然并不具有很强的政治倾向,不到一半的投票率与其他民主国家相比实在是很低了。然而,美国人同时又的确是高度政治性的人群,这个国家境内到处飘扬的国旗就是这一点最明显的象征。如果说国旗还不能说...
评分《美国政治文化》中提到美国何以形成以合理的利益竞争为基础的民主政府时,引用了《联邦党人文集》中麦迪逊的论证:如果单个团体强大到足够获得完全的政治控制力,此时的政府就是最危险的。换句话说,美国的政治生活之所以能够保持一种有节制的斗争关系,乃是其巨大的利益多样...
初翻目录时,那种结构上的严谨性立刻抓住了我的注意力。作者显然花费了大量心血来构建一个逻辑自洽的知识体系。它不是简单地罗列事实或事件,而是围绕几个核心的理论支柱层层展开,从宪法基础的溯源,到三权分立的微妙平衡,再到政党制度的演变及其对民意的影响,每部分的过渡都像是经过精心编排的乐章,自然而流畅。我特别欣赏它在处理复杂概念时所采取的渐进式讲解方式,即便是对于初涉政治学领域的读者,也能通过清晰的定义和恰当的类比,逐步掌握深层逻辑。例如,在阐述“制衡”(Checks and Balances)机制时,书中似乎并没有采取那种教科书式的僵硬叙述,而是通过一系列经典的司法案例来展现其在实际运作中的张力与弹性,这种“在实践中理解理论”的编写思路,极大地增强了知识的可操作性和记忆的持久性。
评分在案例的选取和细节的丰富程度上,这本书的深度远超我的预期。它不仅仅停留在对主要制度和历史节点的概述上,而是深入到了那些常被主流叙事所忽略的角落。我记得在关于联邦制的部分,作者详细对比了不同州在执行某一联邦政策时的差异化反应,并且引用了大量的州级法院判例作为佐证,这让抽象的“联邦主义”概念变得鲜活和具体起来。这种对微观层面的关注,极大地提升了全书的现实主义色彩。读完这部分内容后,我对美国政治运作的理解不再是停留在华盛顿特区的宏大叙事层面,而是扩展到了州议会、地方选举委员会乃至社区层面的具体实践。这种自下而上的观察视角,为理解现代民主的韧性与脆弱性提供了极其宝贵的分析工具。
评分从实用性的角度来看,这本书的价值几乎是无可替代的。它无疑是为那些寻求深入理解美国政治运作机制的严肃学习者量身定制的。无论你是准备进行相关领域的学术研究,还是仅仅希望在面对国际新闻时能够保持清醒的批判性视角,这本书都能提供一个坚实的知识基石。书后的索引系统做得非常详尽,方便查找特定概念或人名,这对于需要频繁回顾和交叉引用的学习过程来说,简直是福音。我已经习惯将重要的章节标记出来,并时常翻阅那些关于选举人团制度和国会立法程序的深度解析。它不仅仅是一本“知识的集合”,更像是一本“思维的工具箱”,帮助读者构建起一套系统性的分析框架,去拆解和理解这个世界上最受关注,同时也最常被误解的政治体之一的内在运作逻辑,这种长期的知识赋能感,是任何速成读物都无法比拟的。
评分这本书的封面设计着实让人眼前一亮,那种厚重的质感,配上沉稳的字体排版,一下子就给人一种权威感和历史的厚重感。我记得我是在一家老牌书店里偶然翻到的,当时就被它那种内敛但绝不失深度的视觉语言所吸引。它不像某些新出版的政治学读物那样追求哗众取宠的色彩和前卫的版式,而是更偏向于经典教材的稳健风格。内页的纸张选择也相当考究,印刷清晰锐利,长时间阅读下来眼睛也不会感到疲劳,这对于一本涉及大量概念和案例分析的著作来说至关重要。装帧工艺看起来非常扎实,边角处理得一丝不苟,让人感觉这本书能陪伴自己度过相当长一段时间的学习旅程。从书脊的厚度和整体的重量来看,就知道内容量必然是相当可观的,这让人对接下来的阅读充满了期待,仿佛手里捧着的不是简单的纸张和油墨的组合,而是一扇通往深刻理解美国政治体制的坚实门户。
评分这本书的叙事风格,说实话,是相当具有个人色彩的,但这种色彩并非指个人偏见,而是一种深刻洞察后的提炼与表达。它不像某些学术著作那样,总是将自己完全隐藏在数据和引文背后,而是以一种温和而坚定的口吻引导读者思考。读起来感觉不像是在被动接受信息,更像是在与一位经验极其丰富的导师进行深度对话。尤其是在分析当代美国政治的极化现象时,作者展现出的克制和客观令人印象深刻。他没有简单地归咎于某一方或某一群体,而是深入挖掘了制度设计、社会文化变迁以及媒体环境共同作用下的多重因果链条。这种多维度的剖析,迫使读者跳出简单的二元对立思维框架,去审视问题背后那些盘根错节的复杂性,这种思维上的挑战和提升,正是我阅读这类严肃著作所追求的核心价值所在。
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