Political Science

A Tale of Three: Political Culture and Codes in the Hebrew Bible

The Hebrew Bible, the twenty-four books that make up the Old Testament of the Christian Bible, tell the stories of the creation of the earth and the founding of the Jewish religion.  In God’s Shadow: Politics in the Hebrew Bible, Michael Walzer engages in a decade-long process of researching how politics

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Joshua Glasser on The Eighteen-Day Running Mate

Published today, Joshua M. Glasser’s The Eighteen-Day Running Mate: McGovern, Eagleton, and a Campaign in Crisis tells the story of the doomed presidential ticket of George McGovern and Thomas Eagleton, and the truth behind the dramatic derailment of a candidate in the 1972 US presidential election.  On the 40th anniversary

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Obamacare: The Media, Policy, and Impact

American politics is, by definition, divisive, but in the 2012 election perhaps no single word demonstrates this better than Obamacare. In Remedy and Reaction: The Peculiar American Struggle Over Health Care Reform, Paul Starr, a former senior advisor on health policy for the Clinton administration,  examines the political and economic

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Faces of Southern Africa

In Southern Africa: Old Treacheries and New Deceits, Stephen Chan delves into the changing landscape of Southern Africa, examining recent developments in the region with an eye towards their wider ramifications across the continent and beyond. Focusing particularly on South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Zambia, Chan paints complex portraits of often

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Apocalyptic Realm: Jihadists in South Asia

We’re all used to reading about South Asia in the headlines, but it takes an expert to grasp the complex political, social, and military history of a region that has spent the last thirty-plus years as one of the focal points of U.S. foreign policy. Dilip Hiro, author of more

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Michael Walzer on Politics in the Hebrew Bible

As one of America’s foremost political thinkers, Michael Walzer has written about a wide variety of topics in political theory and moral philosophy, including political obligation, just and unjust war, nationalism and ethnicity, economic justice, and the welfare state. In his forthcoming book, In God’s Shadow: Politics in the Hebrew

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Islamic Distinctions

For more than a decade now, “Islam” has been a contentious word, associated alternately with terrorism, political regimes, and a widely misunderstood religious faith. Since September 11, 2001, American political commentators have been split between those who call the acts of terrorism typified by the destruction of the World Trade

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An Art History of Israel

Israel: An Introduction, new from Yale University Press, provides a comprehensive look at a nation that has always been at the center of the world’s stage, tracing its tumultuous history and political realities while providing an overview of its economics, population, and culture. In this excerpt from the book’s chapter

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To London, with Love: Springing for Politics

Ivan Lett— I’m no political junkie, just a book publishing historian who comes away from the glory of Britannia every so now and then to find the ever-changing world around me to be…well, ever-changing. When news of the revolution in Egypt broke last winter, I was  still in a holiday

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Lest We Forget: Palestine Betrayed

Sarah Underwood— Who betrayed whom in Palestine? Many people with many purposes would call western nations like Great Britain or eastern powers like the Arab League the traitors, with Arabs and Jews alternating the position of betrayed. For Efraim Karsh, author of Palestine Betrayed, one important and forgotten answer is

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