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Books for Teaching British Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Leon D. Epstein
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Extract

To review books introducing students to the British political system will not strike everyone as an edifying experience even when, as here, the task includes only some of many available textbooks plus a few supplemental works. Focusing on textbooks, despite their often admirable scholarship, reflects primarily our concern as teachers. My concern comes from almost forty years of teaching British politics in American classrooms. What I look for in a text probably differs from expectations of teachers in Britain. But I may also evaluate such books differently from American colleagues who teach British politics only within a broader and more popular course covering several nations. I am among the modest number of American professors devoting an entire semester to British subject-matter, and I can only try to take into account other teaching experiences when I describe the books at hand.

Type
Review Article
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , January 1987 , pp. 93 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

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References

1 The small scale of the British enterprise in political science through the 1950s is clearly evident in Chester, Norman, ‘Political Studies in Britain: Recollections and Comments’, Political Studies, XXIII (1975), 151–64, p. 161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 SirLow, Sidney, The Governance of England (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1919).Google Scholar A later edition, as well as the 1904 original, was also published.

3 SirJennings, Ivor, Cabinet Government (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1936).Google Scholar

4 Muir, Ramsay, How Britain is Governed (New York: Richard R. Smith, 1930).Google Scholar The book was evidently first published in Britain.

5 Greaves, H. R. G., The British Constitution (New York: Macmillan, 1941)Google Scholar, published in Britain by Allen & Unwin, 1938.

6 Laski, Harold J., Parliamentary Government in England (New York: Viking, 1938), published in Britain by Allen & Unwin, 1938.Google Scholar

7 Gooch, Robert K., The Government of England (New York: Van Nostrand, 1937).Google Scholar There were, I believe, one or more other interwar American-authored texts comparable to Gooch's.

8 Ogg, Frederic Austin, English Government and Politics (New York: Macmillan, 1929, 1936).Google Scholar A most distinguished American-produced predecessor of Ogg's book was the two-volume work by Lowell, A. Lawrence, The Government of England (New York: Macmillan, 1908).Google Scholar Despite its length, it might have served as a text in the absence of works designed primarily for the purpose.

9 Chester, , ‘Political Studies in Britain’, p. 162.Google Scholar

10 Harrison, Wilfrid, The Government of Britain (London: Hutchinson's University Library, 1948).Google Scholar Later editions were published in the 1950s.

11 Stout, Hiram Miller, British Government (New York: Oxford University Press, 1953).Google Scholar

12 I have no full count of how many American political science departments offer an exclusively British politics course for undergraduates. Among five large mid-western state universities whose catalogues I looked at, two listed such a course.

13 Beer, Samuel H.. The British Political System (New York: Random House, 1974).Google Scholar Its 243 pages are reprinted as a paperback from Beer, Samuel H. and Ulam, Adam B., eds, The Major Political Systems of Europe (New York: Random House, 1973).Google Scholar

14 Dragnich, Alex N. and Rasmussen, Jorgen S., Major European Governments (Chicago: Dorsey, 1986).Google Scholar Rasmussen is a well-known specialist on British politics and is the executive secretary of the British Politics Group, which serves American academics interested in Britain.

15 Bailey, Sydney D., British Parliamentary Democracy (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1958Google Scholar; 1978 reprint of 1971 edition still available); Moodie, Graeme C., The Government of Great Britain (New York: Crowell, 1961 and later editions)Google Scholar; and Rose, Richard, Politics in England (Boston: Little, Brown, 1964)Google Scholar and in successive editions, including that of 1986 whose British publication in 1985 I shall note later.

16 Epstein, Leon D., ‘What Happened to the British Party Model?’, American Political Science Review, LXXIV (1980), 9–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Coates, David, The Context of British Politics (London: Hutchinson, 1984).Google Scholar

18 Coates, , The Context of British Politics, p. 15.Google Scholar

19 Coates, , The Context of British Politics, p. 254.Google Scholar

20 Leys, Colin, Politics in Britain: An Introduction (London: Heinemann, 1983)Google Scholar, published in Canada and the United States by the University of Toronto Press.

21 Leys, , Politics in Britain, p. 15.Google Scholar

22 Dearlove, John and Saunders, Peter, Introduction to British Politics: Analysing a Capitalist Democracy (Cambridge: Polity Press and Oxford: Blackwell, 1984).Google Scholar Available from Blackwell in the United States.

23 Dearlove, and Saunders, , Introduction to British Politics, p. 107.Google Scholar

24 Moran, Michael, Politics and Society in Britain: An Introduction (London: Macmillan, 1985; New York: St. Martin's, 1985).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 Rose, Richard, Politics in England: Persistence and Change (London: Faber and Faber, 1985).Google Scholar

26 Kavanagh, Dennis, British Politics: Continuities and Change (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1985).Google Scholar

27 Norton, Philip, The British Polity (New York and London: Longman, 1984).Google Scholar

28 Beer, Samuel H., Britain Against Itself: The Political Contradictions of Collectivism (New York and London: Norton, 1982).Google Scholar

29 Beloff, Max and Peele, Gillian, The Government of the UK: Political Authority in a Changing Society (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1985; New York: Norton, 1985).Google Scholar

30 Birch, Anthony H., The British System of Government (London and Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1986).Google Scholar

31 Punnett, R. M., British Government and Politics, 4th edn (Aldershot, Hants, and Brookfields, Vt.: Gower, 1980).Google Scholar

32 Hanson, A. H. and Walles, Malcolm, Governing Britain: A Guidebook to Political Institutions (London: Fontana, 1984).Google Scholar

33 Richards, Peter G., Mackintosh's The Government and Politics of Britain (London: Hutchinson, 1984).Google Scholar Also available in the United States.

34 Madgwick, P. J., Introduction to British Politics (London: Hutchinson, 1984).Google Scholar Also available in the United States.

35 Richards, S. G., Introduction to British Government (London: Macmillan, 1984).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36 Forman, F. N., Mastering British Politics (London: Macmillan, 1985).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37 The abridged college edition of this classic work by David Butler and Donald Stokes has been most useful for students: Political Change in Britain (New York: St. Martin's, 1976).Google Scholar

38 Beer, Samuel H., Modern British Politics: Parties and Pressure Groups in the Collectivist Age (New York: Norton, 1982).Google Scholar Earlier editions of this important book (going back to 1965) were published under slightly different titles in Britain and the United States.

39 King, Anthony, ed., The British Prime Minister (London: Macmillan, 1985; Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1985).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

40 The most recent are Butler, David and Kavanagh, Dannis, The British General Election of 1983 (London: Macmillan, 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Ranney, Austin, ed., Britain at the Polls, 1983 (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1985).Google Scholar

41 Rose, Richard, Do Parties Make a Difference? (Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House, 1984).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42 Budge, Ian, McKay, David, Marsh, David, Page, Edward, Rhodes, Roderick, Robertson, David, Slater, Martin and Wilson, Graham, The New British Political System: Government and Society in the 1980s (London and New York: Longman, 1983).Google Scholar

43 Drucker, Henry, Dunleavy, Patrick, Gamble, Andrew and Peele, Gillian, Developments in British Politics 2 (London: Macmillan, 1986: New York: St. Martin's, 1986).Google Scholar This volume is a considerably changed and enlarged successor to the 1983 and 1984 editions.

44 Borthwick, R. L. and Spence, J. E., British Politics in Perspective (New York: St. Martin's, 1984; Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1984).Google Scholar