Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-7nlkj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-28T12:30:09.389Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How Book Reviewers Can Recognize a Classic When They See One

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Helen Ingram
Helen Ingram*
Affiliation:
University of Arizona
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The End of Liberalism is one of the most widely read books in political science. As book review editor of the American Political Science Review, it interests me that the reviewers of neither the first nor second edition of the book predicted its enormous success. While the reviews were clearly positive in tone, they were far from effusive, and none suggested that the book would become required reading for a generation of political science students. My own copy of the book is annotated by three sets of underlines and comments—my own and those of my two daughters who were assigned the book as undergraduates. Why has the book become so important? What can we learn from it about the ingredients of a great book? Given the broad readership that has responded to Lowi's book, how relevant are the criteria that political scientists use to evaluate their own literature? What qualities should disciplinary reviewers watch for if they hope to recognize what will become a classic?

Type
Features
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , December 1990 , pp. 576 - 579
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ball, Terence. 1988. “The Economic Reconstruction of Democratic Discourse,” in Transforming Political Discourse, ed. Ball, Terence. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, pp. 122–142.Google Scholar
Barber, Benjamin. 1985. Strong Democracy. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Barber, Benjamin. 1988. The Conquest of Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bellah, Robert N., Madsen, Richard, Sullivan, William M., Swidler, Ann and Tipton, Stephen M. 1985. Habits of the Heart. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Bensel, Richard F. 1980. “Creating the Statutory State.” American Political Science Review 74 (September): 734–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernstein, Marver. 1959. Regulating Business by Independent Commission. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Berry, Jeffrey M. 1989. “Subgovernments, Issue Networks and Political Conflict,” in Remaking American Politics, ed. Harris, R. A. and Milkis, S. M.. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp. 239–260.Google Scholar
Block, Fred. 1987. Revising State Theory. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Blumenthal, Sidney and Edsall, Thomas Byrne, eds. 1988. The Reagan Legacy. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Brand, Donald R. 1989. Corporatism and the Rule of Law. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Browne, William. 1988. Private Interests, Public Policy, and American Agriculture. Lawrenceville, KS: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Cigler, Allan J. and Loomis, Burdett A., eds. 1986. Interest Group Politics. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press.Google Scholar
Craig, Barbara H. 1988. Chadha: The Story of an Epic Constitutional Struggle. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Croly, Herbert. 1965. The Promise of American Life. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diamond, Martin. 1986. “Ethics and Politics: The American Way,” in The Moral Foundations of the American Republic, 3rd ed., ed. Horowitz, Robert H.. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, pp. 75–108.Google Scholar
Farrand, Max. 1966. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, 4 vols. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Ginsberg, Benjamin and Shefter, Martin. 1990. Politics by Other Means. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Green, Philip. 1985. Retrieving Democracy. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Allanheld.Google Scholar
Harris, Richard A. 1989. “A Decade of Reform,” in Remaking American Politics, eds. Harris, R. A. and Milkis, S. M.. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp. 3–26.Google Scholar
Harris, Richard A. and Milkis, Sidney M. 1989. The Politics of Regulatory Changes. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Heclo, Hugh. 1978. “Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment,” in The New American Political System, ed. King, Anthony. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, pp. 87–124.Google Scholar
Hertsgaard, Mark. 1988. On Bended Knee. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux.Google Scholar
Jacoby, Russell. 1987. The Last Intellectuals. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.Google Scholar
Jones, Charles O., ed. 1988. The Reagan Legacy. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House Publishers.Google Scholar
Kariel, Henry. 1961. The Decline of American Pluralism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Klingemann, Hans-Dieter, Grofman, Bernard, and Campagna, Janet. 1989. “The Political Science 400.” PS: Political Science & Politics 21: 258–270.Google Scholar
Landis, James M. 1938. The Administrative Process. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Lowi, Theodore J. 1964. “American Business, Public Policy, Case Studies, and Political Theory.” World Politics 16 (July): 677–715.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lowi, Theodore J. 1969. The End of Liberalism. New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Lowi, Theodore J. 1971. The Politics of Disorder. New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Lowi, Theodore J. 1972. “Four Systems of Policy, Politics and Choice.” Public Administration Review 32 (July/August): 298–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lowi, Theodore J. 1979. The End of Liberalism, 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Lowi, Theodore J. 1985. The Personal President. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Lynn, Naomi B. 1983. “Self-Portrait: Profile of Political Scientists,” in Political Science: the State of the Discipline, ed. Finifter, Ada W.. Washington, DC: American Political Science Association, pp. 95–123.Google Scholar
McConnell, Grant. 1966. Private Power and American Democracy. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Mayer, Jane and McManus, Doyle. 1988. Landslide. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Navarro, Peter. 1984. The Policy Game: How Special Interests and Ideologies Are Stealing America. New York: John Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
O'Brien, David. 1987. “The Supreme Court: From Warren to Burger to Rehnquist.” PS: Political Science & Politics 20: 12–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Brien, David. 1988. “The Reagan Judges: His Most Enduring Legacy?” in The Reagan Legacy, ed. Jones, Charles O.. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House Publishers, pp. 60–101.Google Scholar
Pateman, Carole. 1970. Participation and Democratic Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, Mark A. and Walker, Jack L. 1986. “Interest Group Responses to Partisan Change: The Impact of the Reagan Administration upon the National Interest Group System,” in Interest Group Politics, eds. Cigler, A. J. and Loomis, B. A.. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, pp. 162–182.Google Scholar
Peterson, Paul E. and Rom, Mark. 1988. “Lower Taxes, More Spending, and Budget Deficits,” in The Reagan Legacy, ed. Jones, Charles O.. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House Press, pp. 213–240.Google Scholar
Petracca, Mark P. 1986. “Federal Advisory Committees, Interest Groups, and the Administrative State.” Congress and the Presidency 13: 83–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petracca, Mark P. 1990. “The Rational Actor Approach to Politics: Science, Self-interest, and Normative Democratic Theory,” in The Economic Approach to Politics, ed. Monroe, Kristen Renwick. New York: Scott-Foresman/Harper and Row-Collins, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Petracca, Mark P., ed. Forthcoming. The Transformation of Interest Group Politics. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Ricci, David M. 1984. The Tragedy of Political Science. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Sabato, Larry J. 1988. The Party's Just Begun. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Co.Google Scholar
Sanders, Elizabeth. 1981. The Regulation of Natural Gas: Policy and Politics 1938–1978. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Sanders, Elizabeth. Forthcoming. Farmers, Workers and the State, 1877–1916. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Schattschneider, E. E. 1960. The Semisovereign People. Hinsdale, IL: The Dryden Press [republished in 1975].Google Scholar
Schlozman, Kay L. and Tierney, John T. 1985. Organized Interests and American Democracy. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Seidelman, Raymond. 1985. Disenchanted Realists. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Skocpol, Theda. 1985. “Bringing the State Back In: Strategies of Analysis in Current Research,” in Bringing the State Back In, eds. Evans, Peter B., Rueschemeyer, Dietrich and Skocpol, Theda. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 3–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skowronek, Stephen. 1982. Building a New American State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Steven S. 1985. “New Patterns of Decisionmaking in Congress,” in The New Directions in American Politics, eds. Chubb, J. E. and Peterson, P. E.. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, pp. 203–234.Google Scholar
Spitzer, Robert J. 1983. The Presidency and Public Policy. University, AL: University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Spitzer, Robert J. 1987. “Promoting Policy Theory: Revising the Arenas of Power.” Policy Studies Journal 15 (June): 675–689.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stockman, David. 1987. The Triumph of Politics. New York: Avon.Google Scholar
Sullivan, William M. 1985. Reconstructing Public Philosophy. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Ware, Alan. 1987. “United States: Disappearing Parties?” in Political Parties, ed. Ware, A.. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, pp. 117–135.Google Scholar
Wilson, James Q., ed. 1980. The Politics of Regulation. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Wilson, James Q., 1989. Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why they Do It. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar