Keeping the Republic, 4th Brief Edition

It happens too often—well-regarded authors write an excellent full-length text, only to have it sliced and diced into a brief edition whose narrative bears little resemblance to the original. Thankfully, you have a choice—KTR Brief is carefully condensed by Barbour and Wright, giving your students the continuity and consistency of the full version, just in a more concise package.

Serving as a true aid to teachers, each chapter’s discussion of “who gets what and how” is designed to build students’ analytical abilities. By introducing them to the seminal work in the field and showing them how to employ the themes of power and citizenship, this proven text builds confidence in students who want to take an active part in their communities and government.

In this fourth edition, students will find discussion of the Obama administration’s early successes and setbacks, of how Congress fared under Democratic majorities, of the 2010 midterm election results, and of the lasting and lingering affects of the Great Recession, health care reform passage, two ongoing wars, the BP oil spill, and a fast-changing mass media climate.

Barbour and Wright have carefully crafted each sidebar, box, and profile to develop students’ critical thinking skills:

• What’s at Stake?-What’s at Stake Revisited vignettes bookend each chapter asking students to think about what people are struggling to get from politics.
• Consider the Sourceunpacks a method for assessing different types of political information: look for bias, lay out the argument, uncover evidence, and sort out political implications.
• Profiles in Citizenship feature advice about the various ways students can enter public life and make a difference from figures like Sandra Day O’Connor, Bill Richardson, and Bill Maher.

For more information about Keeping the Republic, 4th Brief Edition, click here.

Lone Star Politics

Texas is in a bit of a dilemma—it is a rapidly growing state saddled with a constitution that was written by conservative farmers in 1876. Texas’s government struggles to meet the needs of an increasingly diversified population and the challenges of an economy driven by large multi-national corporations, many on the cutting edge of the information age. How has Texas developed and flourished over the years, but failed to fully respond to these changes?

Lone Star Politics explicitly focuses on the disconnect between the outsized myth of Texas with its legendary political history and the reality of the state’s day-to-day governance to help explain who gets what resources and how they are distributed. The engaging and accessible writing style makes this a book that students of all levels will actually want to read. And when they do, they’ll get both description and analysis, a balance of institutions and behavior, as well as comparisons of Texas with other states.

“Texas vs. _______” feature boxes use narrative, tabular data, and critical thinking questions to show how Texas works differently from the rest of the country, while “Texas Legends” boxes show how certain celebrated figures and institutions influence Texans and their identity as well as shape Texas politics today.

For more information about Lone Star Politics, click here.