The Julian J. Rothbaum Distinguished Lecture Series
About the Series
The Julian J. Rothbaum Distinguished Lecture is sponsored and administered by the Carl Albert Center, University of Oklahoma. The lecture addresses two principles that are of significance to Mr. Rothbaum: the importance of the relationship between education and public service in a representative democracy and the importance of participation by private citizens in public affairs. Rothbaum lecturers are sought from among the most able and discerning observers of American life. The lectures, suitably revised and extended, are individually published as a book by the University of Oklahoma Press. The published volumes form an invaluable repository of analysis and reflection upon the American condition.Showing results 1-10 of 13
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The Senate Syndrome
The Evolution of Procedural Warfare in the Modern U.S. Senate
With its rock-bottom approval ratings, acrimonious partisan battles, and apparent inability to do its legislative business, the U.S. Senate might easily be deemed unworthy of attention, if not downright irrelevant. This book tells us that would be a mistake. Because the Senate has become the place where the policy-making process most frequently stalls, any effective resolution to our polarized politics demands a clear understanding of how the formerly august legislative body once worked and how it came to the present crisis. Steven S. Smith provides that understanding in The Senate Syndrome.
Under Fire and Under Water
Wildfire, Flooding, and the Fight for Climate Resilience in the American West
As a detailed look at the rising stakes and urgency of the various interconnected issues, this book is an important first step toward that understanding—and consequently toward the rethinking and reengineering that will allow people to live sustainably in the American West under the conditions of future global warming.
How America Lost Its Mind
The Assault on Reason That’s Crippling Our Democracy
In How America Lost Its Mind, Thomas Patterson makes a passionate case for fully and fiercely engaging on the side of truth and mutual respect in our present arms race between fact and fake, unity and division, civility and incivility.
A Politician Thinking
The Creative Mind of James Madison
Engaging and accessible, A Politician Thinking offers new insight concerning a key constitutional thinker and the foundations of the American constitutional system. Having a more thorough understanding of how Madison solved the problems presented in the formation of that system, we better grasp a unique moment of political innovation.
The Democratic Century
Where and why was democracy successful in the twentieth century? In The Democratic Century, Seymour Martin Lipset and Jason Lakin combine social, cultural, economic, and institutional...
Disconnect
The Breakdown of Representation in American Politics
Red states, blue states . . . are we no longer the United States? Drawing on polling results and other data, Morris P. Fiorina examines the disconnect between an unrepresentative “political class” and the citizenry it purports to represent. Disconnect depicts politicians out of touch with the larger public, distorting issues and information to appeal to narrow interest groups. It can help readers better understand the political divide between leaders and the American public—and help steer a course for change.
Do Facts Matter?
Information and Misinformation in American Politics
In Do Facts Matter? Jennifer L. Hochschild and Katherine Levine Einstein start with Thomas Jefferson’s ideal citizen, who knows and uses correct information to make policy or political choices. What, then, the authors ask, are the consequences if citizens are informed but do not act on their knowledge? More serious, what if they do act, but on incorrect information?
Party Wars
Polarization and the Politics of National Policy Making
Party Wars is the first book to describe how the ideological gulf now separating the two major parties developed and how today’s fierce partisan competition affects the political...
Diminished Democracy
From Membership to Management in American Civic Life
Pundits and social observers have voiced alarm each year as fewer Americans involve themselves in voluntary groups that meet regularly. Thousands of nonprofit groups have been launched in recent...
The Third Wave
Democratization in the Late 20th Century
Between 1974 and 1990 more than thirty countries in southern Europe, Latin America, East Asia, and Eastern Europe shifted from authoritarian to democratic systems of government. This global...
The Senate Syndrome
The Evolution of Procedural Warfare in the Modern U.S. Senate
With its rock-bottom approval ratings, acrimonious partisan battles, and apparent inability to do its legislative business, the U.S. Senate might easily be deemed unworthy of attention, if not downright irrelevant. This book tells us that would be a mistake. Because the Senate has become the place where the policy-making process most frequently stalls, any effective resolution to our polarized politics demands a clear understanding of how the formerly august legislative body once worked and how it came to the present crisis. Steven S. Smith provides that understanding in The Senate Syndrome.