Countries and Concepts: Politics, Geography, Culture (10th Edition) [Paperback]

Michael G. Roskin (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0136026532 | ISBN-13: 978-0136026532 | Publication Date: August 3, 2008 | Edition: 10

Systematically examining politics from around the world, Countries and Concepts presents ten accessible and in-depth studies of Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, China, India, Mexico, Nigeria, and Iran. This text looks at similarities and differences in five key areas of each country to facilitate comparative analysis, defining important concepts and integrating examples from current events throughout. Highly readable and thought-provoking, Countries and Concepts introduces students to the politics and governments of the world and bolsters their civic education by considering the historical, political, economic, geographical, and moral aspects of democracy.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Students actually read this text. It conveys the major methods of analysis and concepts of political science without jargon. It not only engages students who have little prior interest or knowledge in comparative politics, but it also inspires them to learn more and think critically.”—Linda Dolive, Northern Kentucky University

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From the Inside Flap

A Note to Instructors

My feelings about the seventh edition of Countries and Concepts are contained in a possibly apocryphal early edition of Pravda, printed at the height of the Bolshevik Revolution, that advised its readers: "No news today. Events moving too fast." This edition of Countries and Concepts is full of changes. Britain, France, and Germany have replaced their conservative governments with ones of the center-left. Russia may be lurching toward authoritarianism. Only Japan does not change in any dramatic way. A tour of Japan convinced me that Japan does change, but slowly and reluctantly, always trying to preserve its core of Japaneseness. New to This Edition

The major innovation in the seventh edition is the building into the text of the booklet Political Geography of Countries and Concepts, which was earlier offered as a supplement. Beth Gillett Mejia, former Executive Editor for this book and now Director of Marketing, feels that geography is so important that it should not be left as a side issue. Students are often weak in geography these days; the subject seems to have been dropped from most school curricula. I have been offering Political Geography at Lycoming for some years, at the behest of Lycoming's education department, because students were doing poorly on the geography section of state teacher exams. I hear concerns about students' lack of geographical knowledge from other instructors, so Countries and Concepts tries to remedy this.

Other changes in the text are the addition of several instructional features to help emphasize concepts and definitions:

Key Websites: Each part opens with an annotated list of key website addresses to help students with further research. Questions to Consider: Each chapter opens with a list of "Questions to Consider" to prime students for the main points. Key Terms: Chapters now have running marginal glossaries, labeled "Key Terms," to make sure students are building their vocabularies as they read. The definitions listed are those of a political scientist; in other contexts one might find different definitions. For further review, a list of key terms has been added to the end of each chapter. The page number that follows each listed key term indicates the page upon which the corresponding marginal definition box appears. (These terms and their definitions also appear in the end-of-book Glossary.) Feature Boxes: Most of the feature boxes now have category heads—Geography, Democracy, Political Culture, Comparison, or Key Concepts—to give them greater focus and continuity. Structure and Purpose

The structure and purpose of Countries and Concepts continue as before. The book analyzes four European nations and Japan at some length and four Third World nations more briefly. It does not attempt to create young scholars out of college sophomores. Rather, it sees comparative politics as an important but usually neglected grounding in citizenship that we should be making available to our young people. I agree with the late Morris Janowitz (in his 1983 The Reconstruction of Patriotism: Education for Civic Consciousness) that civic education has declined in the United States and that this poses dangers for democracy. Our students are often ill-prepared in the historical, political, economic, geographical, and moral aspects of democracy, and to expose such students to professional-level abstractions in political science ignores their civic education and offers material that is largely meaningless to them. An undergraduate is not a miniature graduate student.

Accordingly, the seventh edition of Countries and Concepts is designed to include a good deal of fundamental vocabulary and concepts, buttressed by many examples. It is readable. Many students don't do assigned readings; with Countries and Concepts, they have no excuse that the reading is long or boring.

Some reviewers have noted that Countries and Concepts contains values and criticisms. This is part of my purpose. The two go together; if you have no values, you have no basis from which to criticize. Value-free instruction is probably impossible. If successful, it would produce value-free students, and that, I think, should not be the aim of the educational enterprise. If one knows something with the head but not with the heart, one really doesn't know it at all.

Is Countries and Concepts too critical? It treats politics as a series of ongoing quarrels for which no very good solutions can be found. It casts a skeptical eye on all political systems and all solutions proposed for political problems. As such, the book is not out to "get" any one country; it merely treats all with equal candor. Countries and Concepts tries to act as a corrective to analyses that depict political systems as well-oiled machines or gigantic computers that never break down or make mistakes. Put it this way: If we are critical of the workings of our own country's politics—and many, perhaps most, of us are—why should we abandon the critical spirit in looking at other lands?

The seventh edition continues the loose theoretical approach of the previous editions with the simple observation that politics, on the surface at least, is composed of a number of human conflicts or quarrels. These quarrels, if observed over time, usually form patterns of some durability beyond the specific issues involved. What I call patterns of interaction are the relationships among politically relevant groups and individuals—what they call in Russian kto-kovo: Who does what to whom? There are two general types of such patterns: (1) between elites and masses, and (2) among and within elites.

Before we can appreciate these patterns, however, we must first study the political culture of a particular country, which leads us to its political institutions and ultimately to its political history. Thus we have a five-fold division in the study of each country. We could start with a country's contemporary political quarrels and work backward, but it is probably better to begin with the underlying factors as a foundation from which to understand their impact on modem social conflict. This book goes from history to institutions to political culture to patterns of interaction to quarrels. This arrangement need not supplant other approaches. Instructors have had no trouble utilizing this book in connection with their preferred theoretical insights.

Inclusion of the Third World in a first comparative course is problematic. The Third World is so complex and differentiated that many (myself included) suspect the concept should be discarded. The semester is only so long. But if students are going to take only one comparative course—all too often the case nowadays—they should get some exposure to three-quarters of humankind. We continue, therefore, with briefer treatment of four non-European systems: China, Brazil, South Africa, and Iran. They are not "representative" systems—what Third-World countries are?—but are interesting in their four different relationships to democracy: (I) democracy in China blocked by a Communist elite; (2) democracy returned to Brazil after a military interlude; (3) the difficult founding of a nonracial democracy in South Africa; and (4) democracy blanketed by an Islamic revolution in Iran. These four systems provide a refreshing counterpoise to the more settled systems of Europe and Japan. Instructors can and do omit some or all of these Third-World systems—for lack of time or in order to focus more closely on Europe—but this does not destroy the continuity of the text. Supplements Companion Website

prenhall/roskin This new website brings an online study guide to students, absolutely free. When students log on, they will find a wealth of study and research resources. Chapter outline and summary information, true/false tests, fill-in-the-blank tests, and multiple-choice tests, all with immediate feedback and chapter page numbers, give students ample opportunity to review the information. The site also includes an archive of the maps that are found in the text, as well as links to sites pertaining to the countries that are covered in the text. Instructor's Manual and Test Item Files

An instructor's manual with test item files on diskette are available to instructors from their Prentice Hall representative. Acknowledgements

I welcome your suggestions on any area of the book and its supplementary materials. Many have generously offered their comments, corrections, and criticism. Especially valuable were the comments of Christian Soe, California State University at Long Beach; Cheryl L. Brown, University of North Carolina at Charlotte; Karl W Ryavec, University of Massachusetts at Amherst; Frank Myers, State University of New York at Stony Brook; Ronald F Bunn, University of Missouri-Columbia; Said A. Arjomand, State University of New York at Stony Brook; Larry Elowitz, Georgia College; Arend Lijphart, University of California at San Diego; Cheryl Brown, University of North Carolina at Charlotte; Thomas P Wolf, Indiana University, Southeast; Susan Matarese, University of Louisville; Marianne C. Stewart, Rutgers University (on Brazil); Hanns-D. Jacobsen, Free University of Berlin (on Germany); Ruth Grubel of Kwansei Gakuin, Nishinomiya; Ko Shioya of Bungei Shunju (on Japan); Carol Nechemias, Penn State at Harrisburg; Yury Polsky, West Chester University, and Marcia Weigle, Bowdoin College (on Russia); Dan O'Connell of Palm Beach Community College (on China); and Lycoming colleagues Mehrdad Madresehee and Bahram Golshan (on Iran), Carla Damiano (on Germany), and Garett Heysel (on France). All errors, of course, are my own. Instructors may send professional comments and corrections to me personally at Lycoming College, Williamsport, PA 17701, or e-mail roskin(c)lycoming. I am grateful for any suggestions for subsequent editions.

Michael G. Roskin --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 640 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 10 edition (August 3, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0136026532
• ISBN-13: 978-0136026532
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #61,002 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good concept, February 25, 2005

By 

FrKurt Messick "FrKurt Messick" (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Countries and Concepts: Politics, Geography, and Culture, Eighth Edition (Paperback)

You won't find this book generally in the bookstore, unless you're in the college bookstore, looking on the shelf marked 'Required'. Most likely you would never want to read this book even if it was required. Flipping through the table of contents and the pages, it screams textbook. It even has vocabulary words at the end of each chapter. How much more dry, dull, and boring can you get?

Fr. Kurt, what are you doing reviewing this book? Don't tell us you're actually going to recommend this book to us!? Please don't tell us that!!

Yes, I recommend this book.

Sorry. I have an undergraduate degree in political science, have taught political science, and have a large collection of sample texts that I have been sent in hopes that I would teach some large 400-student introductory politics class and use the book. Most of these books have been traded for more worthwhile books at the local used book stores. This book, however, 'Countries & Concepts: An Introduction to Comparative Politics', by Michael Roskin, is one that I had to purchase. And I've used it in earlier editions. And I shall again in this and later editions.

Despite the textbook-layout (which is in fact fine, if one wants a textbook, and only a minor inconvenience if one does not), this is an insightful, informative, clearly-written text, with a much broader range that goes into deeper detail than most of its type. This is why I use it.

This is a text for those who have already had American politics -- I didn't want to rehash the first-semester material, so I chose a book that did not have an American section or chapter. If I were to choose a more complete volume, I would consider that a minus.

Roskin begins with a chapter on general political concepts. He explores concepts such as left, right, and centre designations (and how these vary, or are similar, in different contexts); historical data that is necessary for understanding, patterns of interaction, political attitudes and ideologies, and finally, my favourite chapters in each section, 'What People Quarrel About'.

Roskin has major sections on Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, China, Brazil, and South Africa. In each section he examines the key institutions of government and society (not always the same things), impact of the past, political attitudes, interactions, and the quarrels. For instance, racism pops up as a quarrel in different countries, but has different dimensions. Nationalism might be strong in one country, and not in another. The attitudes toward wealth and wealth distribution are common quarrels, although the mechanisms and conclusions are different.

The quarrel sections always provide the best material for class discussions, particularly as students bring their own issues up. This is what, in the end, comparative politics is all about.

I applaud this book for breaking out of the European-only model of comparative politics. I appreciate that Africa and South America are included (often overlooked in major political survey texts). While it is still European-dominated (as is the general course of international politics in the world today), it echoes the diversity inherent in the world.

The text is filled with sidebars of interest, and yes, if you care to, you can even do the vocabulary tests at the end. Each chapter has a bibliography for further reading. The book tends to be updated every three-to-four years, so that it is not out of date.

Let me know when to set the date for your examination...

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great oversight on comparative politics., November 4, 2001

By 

Bobby Detwiler (Case Western Reserve University) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Countries and Concepts: Politics, Geography, Culture (7th Edition) (Paperback)

I am using this book for my comparative politics class at Case Western, and unlike most of my textbooks, this text is actually interesting to read.

The book gives excellent coverage on the general ideas without going to deep into detail for most people. Once you read this book you will understand British, French, German, and Japanese politics better than you did before. I came out knowing more than I thought I would.

However, there is no colour in this book at all. The pictures and illustrations are completely black and white, except for some red highlights at the beginning of the chapters. That seems to be my only problem with the book.

The book goes into the political systems of each of the individual countries stated before, but Roskin also goes into the reasons behind the political systems in place. History, geography and cultural effects are discussed in easy to follow ways, both logically and structurally.

This is an excellent reference for any history or political science student, or for anyone looking to learn more. That's why I am recommending this book.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I can't believe I had to pay over $100 for this text!, April 5, 2010

By 

Laura Kent - See all my reviews

This review is from: Countries and Concepts: Politics, Geography, Culture (11th Edition) (Paperback)

This is the only textbook I have ever come to hate. Reading this author for the required reading text assignments every day nearly drove me batty. He makes sweeping generalities and the text is riddled with absolutes. Did you know that ALL Russians need to steal and cheat to get by? Apparently even the babies do it! Cultures without a xtian/catholic-based religion are called irreligious with vaccuums of belief that only money fills, and yet at the same time "Modern capitalism has a moral base" that is built on people within it trusting each other. Every country has a section or two about the role of christian/catholic-like religion in it even when the text admits that the country really doesn't support or have many that believe in that way--many times it is to point out how that country is given to executing people who try to spread the western religions to them. At the same time, there is no mention in historically christianish/catholic-based countries that have done the same thing, but to other religions. The book totally ignores spirituality, which can be rather different from religion, give something to believe in, and is more than just philosophy. This text about drove me bonkers and I am very disappointed in my school for choosing it. The bias and absolutes (everyone, no one, all, none, always, never, etc) were pretty obvious to me, but I have to admit that part of it is also how subtle they are. They are woven naturally throughout a text that is otherwise intelligent and informative. This makes it all the more disappointing a text to pick. When you are writing a text on other cultures, you just cannot look at them solely through your own lens and be fair about it. Promoting a text like this encourages students to continue the bias, rather than truly attempt to understand the other culture from their own eyes and experiences.

I would suggest editing out ALL absolutes for future editions and sticking the author's opinion, no matter how supported it seems to be into clearly labeled opinion boxes. Comparisons are a nifty way to learn, but not if, in comparing, you give more weight to your own cultural biases.

Note: I have the 10th edition of this text, I can only hope he at least edited out ALL of his absolutes in the 11th.

All hail the morally-based capitalist system, down with the morally bankrupt peoples who only have money to believe in...and don't forget to pick up your very own Bible on the way out! (sarcasm)