Robert A. Dahl (1915 – 2014), eminent political scientist and champion of democracy, passed away on February 5, 2014 in Hamden, Connecticut, at age 98. Named by Foreign Affairs magazine the “dean of American political scientists,” Dahl was instrumental in building one of the first modern political science departments. Dahl authored hundreds of articles and dozens
Follow @yaleARTbooks Rebecca Levinsky— A Great Crowd Had Gathered: JFK in the 1960s, on view at the Yale University Art Gallery, captures the essence of Kennedy’s life in the public sphere and the effects of his assassination on the American public. The exhibition space itself creates a somber mood. The
As the world became embroiled in the fight against the Nazis, America gathered to decide on the president who would lead them through it. Susan Dunn’s book, 1940: FDR, Wilkie, Lindbergh, Hitler—the Election amid the Storm, documents this incredible moment in history when the US broke with tradition and elected
Follow @MHarrisPerry Follow @MHPShow “Citizenship is more than an individual exchange of freedoms for rights,” writes Melissa V. Harris-Perry, professor, writer and television host, in Sister Citizen. “It is also membership in a body politic, a nation, and a community.” In Sister Citizen, now available in paperback, Harris-Perry looks at
Follow @yaleSCIbooks With a struggling economy, the U.S. unemployment rate remains high. The gap between the nation’s rich and poor is getting wider. American public schools are failing to provide our country’s children a good education. And the partisan warfare in Washington has led to a political gridlock that has
Since Election Day, a host of scapegoats have been blamed for Mitt Romney’s campaign loss – Obama’s “gifts” to minorities, Governor Chris Christie, single women, Former President Bush – the list is tireless. Yet perhaps the most convincing factor has less to do with Romney and more with the Republican
In light of tonight’s Vice Presidential debate, Joshua M. Glasser, author of The Eighteen-Day Running Mate: McGovern, Eagleton, and a Campaign in Crisis, provides some insight into the importance of the role of the Vice President, the selection process, and its relevance to public opinion, despite its changing historical and current perception
After Senator John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate for the 2008 Republican Party presidential ticket, there was quite a bit of media speculation and excitement surrounding Mitt Romney’s announcement of Paul Ryan as his running mate in August. But the last two presidential elections are
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
Famously cited as one of Obama’s favorite philosophers, midcentury religious and political thinker Reinhold Niebuhr offered “a political realism that refuses to abandon high moral principles to short-term practical compromises.” In Why Niebuhr Matters, from Yale University Press’s Why X Matters Series, author Charles Lemert explores the continued relevance of