Great Books in Comparative Politics

Catalog description

This seminar has two central purposes. One is to learn from books that have shaped fundamental conversations in the field of comparative politics about the domains, concepts, and theories analyzed and presented in the texts. The other is to gain a deep and detailed appreciation of authorial strategies by examining the relationship between the organization and presentation of arguments and the motivation and claims of the authors. The fact that a book is assigned in this course does not make it “Great” in every respect. Nor does its inclusion reflect a judgment by the instructor that it represents the truth, or even a treatment of its topic that is more effective than anything else available. It does represent a judgment that it is a text whose study can help provide, refine, and/or greatly improve the cognitive maps that graduate students specializing in comparative politics are each trying to construct. The books we read will be studied under three categories: How we got here? How Things Work? and How Do We Know Things?