We the People (Essentials Thirteenth Edition) by Benjamin Ginsberg

We the People (Essentials Thirteenth Edition) Reviews

• 
  Brittain *Needs a Nap and a Drink*

  I...
  
  I can't believe it...
  
  I've actually read a whole textbook cover to cover.
  
  
  
  Maybe I'll review this one later. You know, after the exam this book has spawned.
• 
  Andrea

  For you poor souls dealing with Online Government/US Government out there: DO THE QUIZZES AT THE END OF EACH CHAPTER! They are superbly helpful and may mimic questions you'll encounter again. Also, the following links all have very good practice questions to help you breeze through the course:
  
  
  https://quizlet.com/Yesnataliee
  
  https://quizlet.com/Viiry_/folders/go...
  
  http://www.wwnorton.com/college/polis...
  
  These question sets are lifesavers. No joke. Whoever made these deserves to be repeatedly commended for their efforts.
• 
  Teri

  This is a textbook on American Politics. It covers pretty much every subject you would expect to find in a textbook on politics. If you have to read a textbook on American politics, this will do fine, but as you would imagine, it can be dry and boring.
• 
  Tony

  The only problem I had using this in the classroom was with the last chapter on foreign policy. To quote Ike:
  
  "Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. Frankly, I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing."
  Dwight D. Eisenhower
  
  Hopefully, future iterations of this textbook will correct the over-emphasis on the Bush Doctrine in chapter 14. Some glaring omissions: "international law" and the Nuremberg Principles are not mentioned at all. It's as if the editors caved to the neocons among their collaborators and reviewers.
  
  The textbook is very good on the whole, with relevant quizzes and key terms listed for each chapter, and interactive online tools for each chapter, through the website (free to use) associated with the textbook. Other than the exception noted above, good tone and balance throughout. I'll be using it again.
• 
  Acenith Claassen

  I found the book to be fairly informative. What bothered me was the inaccurate characterization of conservatives throughout, and that the book is written from a left of center rather than an unbiased perspective.
• 
  Stephanie

  Read for a political science class, very informative
• 
  C.B. Cook

  Pretty good, for a textbook! A little repetitive, though.
• 
  Marie

  Standard College level textbook - an introduction into American Politics. I bought it mainly as a reference book which it does an adequate job.
  
  It's compact size is perfect for desktop reference and review. In addition to having copies of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, the textbook also has review questions for the reader to challenge themselves.
  
  It extensively covers:
  
  ** Citizenship and Government - how government affects our lives, our identities, our ideals
  
  ** Our Founding and the Constitution - How Political conflicts shaped the first founding, how the failure of the articles attributed to the second founding, what the Constitution created, and how difficult ratification was
  
  ** Federalism - How it shaped American politics and how the definition changed radically over time
  
  ** Civil Liberties and Civil Rights - Students will be surprised to learn that those who opposed the Constitution paved the way for the Bill of Rights. This section also provides coverage of the first amendment, how the second amendment protects gun owners, how criminals are afforded due process by the constitution, the right to privacy, Civil Rights protections and struggles, and online privacy is also covered.
  
  ** The Role of the Media in Society as well as social media
  
  ** Political Parties, Participation and Elections - how political parties rose from the electoral process, the two-party system, political participation in traditional and online forms, as well as explaining why political party loyalty is important
  
  ** Interest Groups - This section also covers pluralist and elitist views, the increase of special interest groups, as well as the strategies used
  
  ** Congress - how the congress represents the people, how it is shaped by party, explanation of how a bill becomes law, the factors that leads congress to their decisions, and the other roles that congress has
  
  ** The Presidency - where the President gets his/her powers, institutional resources
  
  ** Bureaucracy - how it improves efficiency, how the Executive Branch is organized, and who controls the bureaucracy
  
  ** Federal Courts - how the legal system settles disputes, the different courts and what cases they hear, the Supreme Court and its powers
  
  ** Domestic Policy - Public Policy = Government Coercion, how the techniques of making policy are control, social policy and welfare, poverty, and social spending is also explored.
  
  ** Foreign Policy - this section ends the book covering: security based on military strength, how American foreign policy is shaped by both Government and non-Government actors, the tools of American Foreign policy, and using technology to topple governments citing the Case of Egypt.
  
  For pleasure reading - it is a boring read. However, for review and reference - it does the job it was written to do.
• 
  Cor

  13th edition review:
  Of course I had to spend $$$ on the "latest" version of this US Gov textbook which meant each chapter was padded with photos and references to the Trump administration, COVID-19 Pandemic and "social media" safety tools. After realizing all of this was meaningless to our course content I don't understand why we weren't given a more paired down cheaper version of US Government basics + history. Obviously this is my beef with the state of college textbooks but still, this is a $135+ textbook yet it reads like a collection of Khan Academy lessons intermixed with photo's taken from the last couple years but ended up meaning the first 5-7 pages of each chapter were completely unnecessary.
  
  Because this book was so absurdly expensive AND the print copies were all sold out/rented out I had to rent a digital copy. This was one of the worst ebook designs I've come across in a while. The text was often clunky and the table of contents didn't give good hierarchy to the chapters and sections which meant navigating the whole ebook was difficult because it looked like one long book full of 200+ chapters. Also because of all the large photos used it took up way to much room per "page" and really messed up the reading experience.
  
  The actual information in the textbook was good but this feels like the bare minimum compared to everything else. The most important parts are the glossary of each chapter and the constitutional documents at the back.
• 
  Kaitlyn Crozier

  Great resource on American politics. Did I want to read this? Nope. But I finally finished political science years after avoiding it in college. Yay me! (Patting myself on the back)
  It’s a nice textbook and the chapter quizzes are useful!
  Also, when taking quizzes for your class, the index is super helpful 👌🏼
• 
  Tori

  FINALLY!! I read a textbook cover to cover!! AHH
  
  
• 
  Jenny Cameron Paulsen

  Great for a textbook.
• 
  Stevie

  this book pulled through for all my cramming nights and will probably to continue to pull through until the end of my finals.
• 
  Jim Twombly

  A good, solid textbook with great support materials for faculty. Love that it comes closer than many texts to following our short term (12 week) schedule than most available texts.
• 
  S1lly_K1tt3n

  This was a very educational book to introduce politics, and how to gain or perceived political knowledge. Mostly read it for a school assignment. Plan to give it another read to make a fair judgment.
• 
  Shun

  another well-written textbook
• 
  Sarah

  This was a decent textbook. It was very up-to-date, which was nice, but the writing was rather mediocre and it was unclear at times. My biggest problem with this book is that it wasn't very neutral - it made an attempt, but you could tell that the author was a liberal (and I'm not one of those crazy conservatives who thinks everything but the Bible is liberal propaganda - I'm super liberal myself, but I still value neutrality in textbooks). The author would sometimes clearly promote certain ideas over others - for instance, the book was really positive about political parties and REALLY negative about the scope of presidential power -- for example, the last sentence in the Presidency chapter was "Americans of the founding generation feared that unchecked presidential power would lead to monocracy- a republican form of monarchy without a king. Have we not taken more than one step in that direction? Inevitably, we will pay a price for our undemocratic politics." This concerns me even more after seeing that the author also wrote a book about how the president is too powerful - clearly, he has strong opinions on the matter that clouded his objectivity in writing the textbook. And while I did like that the book discussed the 2008 election in depth, it also used 2008 as an example for things like voter turnout and party identification and such that I don't think is the best example, since the 2008 election was extraordinary and unique and not typical of American elections.
  
  So, not the worst American Politics textbook, but not the best either. The visuals are great and there are some really interesting graphs, but some of the information is a little suspect.
• 
  Silas

  I had no love for Political Science, but this text was helpful in understanding what was going on
• 
  N. Ray

  I read this book for my federal government class... In fact, I nearly read it 2 times through and some of the chapters I read 3 times. It's very well organized, containing the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, a lot of all the presidents, etc. in the back. Most students didn't know about this... unfortunately for them. lol I will caution that the quizzes in the back of the chapters have a misprint in the answer key. So please do not memorize the answers or you'll be shooting yourself in the foot!
• 
  Robin

  As far as text books go, this one was okay. The chapters were structured really well and the information was explained alright. Mt biggest probalem with this textbook was that there were times when the sentences were needlessly complex. I found myself engaged and focused one moment and completely spaced out the next. When I reread the part I spaced out, it was usually worded badly. Still, I learned a lot and the web site that goes with it provides some great study tools as well.
• 
  Brooke

  The information given was much better than the text from the first time I took this class (110) --it covered things that I hadn't heard of until 311! There is, however, a very liberal bias to it. I would give it a 3.5 if I could.
• 
  Kathleen

  This is my second choice book to use as a textbook for Intro to AP. It seems very engaging and it emphasizes student involvement in politics.
  
  But it's not very structural, critical, or comparative. And those are things that I think a textbook should be.
• 
  Jenny

  Strangely, I did the worst on the assigned quizzes for chapters that I found most interesting. Not sure how that worked out. Textbooks are textbooks. This one is okay for basic understanding of government and politics.
• 
  Kaela Jackson

  I had to read this book for my college government class. Definitely not by choice. But it was honestly a good government history book, as well as a government history book can be.
• 
  SK Payne

  Long chapters. Boring at times...but really insightful.