A Novel Approach to Politics: Introducing Political Science Through Books, Movies, and Popular Culture

By Douglas A. Van Belle

Book Overview

A Novel Approach to Politics turns conventional textbook wisdom on its head by using pop culture references to illustrate key concepts and cover recent political events. This is a textbook you will want to read. Adopters of previous editions from schools all over the country are thanking author Douglas A. Van Belle for some of their best student evaluations to date.
With this Fifth Edition, Douglas A. Van Belle brings the book fully up to date with recent events such as Trump's executive orders on immigration, the 2016 elections in the US, current policy debates including recent court decisions that may affect gerrymandering, international happenings such as Brexit, and other assorted intergalactic matters. Van Belle adds a wealth of new and recent movies and books to the text, as he illustrates key concepts in political science through examples that captivate you. Employing a wide range of references from 1984 to Game of Thrones to House of Cards, students are given a solid foundation in institutions, ideology, and economics. To keep things grounded, the textbook nuts and bolts are still there to aid students, including chapter objectives, chapter summaries, bolded key terms, and discussion questions.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1506368654
• ISBN13: 9781506368658
• Release Date: December 2017
• Publisher: CQ Press
• Length: 536 Pages
• Weight: 1.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 7.5" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Informative and hilarious

I read this book to prepare for a state assessment in political science. Unlike other PS101 textbooks, this one makes a ton of sense and is easy to read. The analogies, pictures, commentary and real-world example really provide a way for the various concepts and terminology to become understandable. I would recommend this book to any professor teaching a bunch of freshmen students with zero understanding in the realm of politics. It would also be good for high school teachers...

Seems Interesting

Although I have only had this book for about two weeks, it seems interesting. I'll be curious to see how it integrates popular culture with politics.

A review by a professor

I adopted this book for my intro to political science course after several trials of other introductory texts. The problem with "textbooks" in general is they tend to be rather dry, hard to follow and fail to capture the spirit of the material (a.k.a. boring). Introductory texts are even more of a challenge as they lump a large body of knowledge into a condensed version. Ultimately, as a professor, even I have a hard time digesting the material in most textbooks. The Van Belle and Mash text is the exception to the rule. The book is entertaining and easy to read. While the authors do stretch at times to make a joke (sometimes at the cost of actually learning something), they provide a refreshing and very accessible look at political science. It is a text students will actually read (one can hope) and enjoy.