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Rating: 
Summary: A top-notch Government textbook
Review: I totally disagree with the other reviewer. This is truly a top-notch textbook. I have been teaching introductory American Government courses at the university level for 4 years, and I can honestly say that this is one of the finest introductory textbooks available. It covers all aspects of American government in a clear, concise manner that makes it very easy to read. The book is very well-organized, and it truly makes teaching American government a joy. Students will love it, and professors will be very happy to find a text that actually ENGAGES students in the learning process (whereas most textbooks just turn them off).
Rating: 
Summary: textbook!?
Review: My instructor required this book for a college political science class. After having read and studied it from beginning to end, there were a couple of aspects that bothered me. There is a lot of repetition, over facts, issues and definitions. Sometimes I would read the same passage 2 or 3 times, and there were times when the exactly same passage was repeated, as in "copy and paste". Some paraphrasing would have been nice.
The book also seemed to be focused towards those shocking moments in the US history. The 9/11 topic was overdone. It was brought up countless of times. The Clinton scandal took second place among many others. It would have been appreciated if the summary would have been more representative; 4 lines occupying just half of the page (equivalent to maybe 2 standard lines) summarizing 6 pages is too short to my taste considering the amount of essential facts and concepts students have to remember. Back then I wished there would have been a glossary of the organizational or the authors' own abbreviations. I just couldn't keep track of them and eventually got lost and frustrated, especially in the last chapters. It think it is weird when the graphs take sometimes half or more of the page when they could have been done on a smaller scale saving a lot of paper (and a lot of trees) and I also wondered why were there more pictures of GW Bush in comparison to the other presidents, candidates and officeholders combined. The writing style, in my opinion, could have been more concise and precise. I was very disappointed for having spent more than $100 on a soft cover book that seems just fairly put together.
Rating:
Summary: Badly Written Text
Review: This was the assigned textbook for a local university course on American government and politics. I ended up dropping the course largely because of this textbook. It is written a much lower than university level and seems biased towards conservative viewpoints (maybe the non-Texas edition is less slanted). In the first chapter (fourth paragraph) I learned the following:
"It is part of the American creed that each generation should hand down to the next not only a better America, but an improved economic, educational, and social status. In general, Americans long have been optimistic about our nation, its institutions, and its future. Thomas Jefferson saw the United States as the world's "best hope"; Abraham Lincoln echoed these sentiments when he called it the "last, best hope of earth." But during the 1990s, for the first time in decades, some of that optimism faded. Many Americans were dismayed by the Clinton/Lewinsky affair, campaign finance abuses, and often the government in general. This disenchantment, some believe, led to the continued low voter turnout in the 2000 election."
Not only does this ignore the political turmoil and distrust spawned by the Vietnam War, Watergate, and the Iran/Contra scandal (all more divisive than anything Clinton ever did), but its only evidence of support is discredited later in the text when we learn that voter turnout was lower in 1996, before the Lewinsky affair, than in 2000.
Later when the text compares Democrats and Republicans we learn that Republicans like less government and that:
"Less government allows for more individual freedom and liberty. No government should be able to tell you that you can't own a gun, smoke a cigarette in a public building, or eat popcorn at the movies. You should be free to read the books you choose to read, watch the movies you choose to watch, and get together with the people whom you enjoy, all without government interference."
Well heck, sign me up for the Republican party. I sure like to eat popcorn at the movies! Darn all those Democrats and their popcorn-banning, book-burning, movie-censoring regulations!
Sometimes the statements are just puzzling:
"You probably already have a good idea of what the terms liberal and conservative mean, but you probably may not be aware that the meaning of these terms has changed dramatically over time. During the nineteenth century for example, conservatives supported governmental power and favored a role for religion in public life; in contrast liberals supported freedom from undue governmental control."
My how things have changed. Today it must be the liberals who think religion should have a stronger voice in government and want more undue government control.
The authors also rely on William Safire - conservative political commentator - to define the terms "liberal" and "conservative" for them. How balanced is that?
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