Preface

I began teaching the introductory course to American government (POLS 1000 at California State University, Los Angeles) on a regular basis many years ago. At first, I used standard American government textbooks, the type that adopt a mostly conventional and “institutional approach,” meaning that they focus on an examination of the core institutions of the US government as well as those that are closely related to the governing process. This has resulted in most American government textbooks looking very similar. If you look though the table of contents in a standard textbook, you will most likely see chapters with similar titles that cover the US Constitution, the three branches (the presidency, Congress, and the courts), federalism, civil liberties and civil rights, public opinion, voting and elections, the media, political parties, interest groups and lobbying, and foreign policy.

Different authors usually introduce an interesting theme or their own framework of analysis in an effort to distinguish their textbooks from their main rivals. Despite this, in my view, most American government textbooks do not inspire deep or critical thinking or, if they do, the sheer amount of descriptive or factual information contained in these books can be overwhelming, which creates a tradeoff between thinking deeply about the material versus simply trying to get through hundreds of pages of sometimes tedious reading. It is not unusual, for example, for a basic American government textbook to have somewhere between 600 to 800 pages. Not coincidentally, these very long books also tend to be pretty expensive, as much as $250.

Fortunately, there were always some alternatives. After searching and reading through several possibilities, I found an unconventional textbook, which I adopted and used for many years. That book is by G. William Domhoff, titled Who Rules America? Domhoff uses a class-power approach, which is a fancy way of saying that his book examined how the wealthiest Americans (i.e., the upper class), including those who owned the largest corporations, have come to dominate the political process in the United States. “Class and power are terms”, as Domhoff puts it, “that make Americans a little uneasy.” The reason, especially when the two terms are combined, is clear: class power sounds a little radical and even Marxist. And, in the US, most citizens have been taught that Marxism is a dangerous and evil ideology. Yet, when it comes right down to it, a lot of Americans easily accept the idea that the “upper class” uses its money to influence and corrupt the political system in their favor. In this sense, it is not a radical idea at all. Still, it’s important to examine the issue in more depth, which a big reason I choose to adopt Domhoff’s book. Another reason for my decision was that Domhoff went to great lengths to support his argument with solid and relevant evidence. In the United States today, too many people are swayed by arguments that sound good (and for which they may be biased to agree with), but they aren’t willing or do not know to look carefully at the evidence. However, an argument without good evidence (as opposed to fake evidence, which is another big problem today) is nothing more than an unsupported and likely faulty opinion.

Despite using Who Rules America? for several years, I wasn’t entirely satisfied. While this may sound contradictory, my dissatisfaction was because the book was too class focused. My position is that making sense of politics in the United States requires an understanding of the impact of race/racism. To be fair, Domhoff did try to address race in a newer edition of his book, but his approach left much to be desired in my mind. As a result, I decided to write my own book, which I’ve previously done for two other courses I teach on a regular basis. This time around, I decided I wanted to take the path of least resistance, specifically, self-publishing. Technology has made self-publishing a far easier, faster, and less expensive task than it once was. The last point is important: Because self-published books are less expensive to produce, I’m able to set my own price. Traditional publishers, as I noted above, may charge hundreds of dollars for their books, but even lower-cost publishers need to charge $30 to $60 to cover expenses. A self-published e-book, by contrast, has minimal production expenses (although assisted self-published books may require a few thousand dollars for production assistance, cover design, permissions, marketing, and the like).

The one major downside of self-publishing is that my book has not been reviewed or vetted by an outside expert(s). Outside experts or external, peer reviewers play an important role in the publication process. They often provide valuable suggestions for making the book better, they highlight inconsistencies and factual or methodological errors, and generally serve to ensure the overall quality of published material. For academic books, in fact, there may be two separate rounds of peer review—one when the manuscript is first sent to the publisher, and a second after the author revises and resubmits the manuscript based on the comment received from the peer reviewers. Traditional publishers, too, offer valuable editorial assistance. As a result of not going through the peer and editorial review process, this book is likely be less polished than a typical published book.