Students often complain that textbooks are boring, especially the door-stoppers in use for most survey courses. But they’ve never had a textbook like this. Just ask adopters of the first edition who are thanking Novel Approach for some of their best student evaluations to date.

Van Belle and Mash deliver the core concepts and real-world political examples you expect from an introductory book, just in a way that your students will actually have fun reading and will retain after the exam. With enlightening, yet entertaining, references ranging from 1984 to The Dark Knight, students take away more from discussions of institutions, ideology, and economics because concepts are introduced using popular culture. Revisions to the second edition, in addition to a wealth of new and recent movies and books, include new features on major political theorists and expanded stand-alone institutional chapters on the legislature and the executive.

Never fear—the textbook stuff is here too—chapter summaries, bolded key terms, and discussion questions.

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1. Introducing the Ancient Debate: The Ideal versus the Real
The Dollhouse
Fiction as a Tool for Exploring Politics
Utopias in Fiction and Politics
Ideologies
What Is Politics?
What Is Political Science?

2. Why Government? Security, Anarchy, and Some Basic Group Dynamics
A Model for the Emergence of Cooperation: Bobsville
Collective Action
Security
Power
Anarchy
The Context of Hierarchy
Alliances
Groups and Group Identities

3. Governing Society: We Know Who You Are
Leadership Benefits
The Panopticon
Collective Action, Revolution, and the Use of Force
Legitimacy and Government Control

4. Government’s Role in the Economy: The Offer You Can’t Refuse
The Tragedy of the Commons
Karl Marx--Student of Capitalism?
Socialism
The Yin and Yang of Capitalism and Socialism

5. Structures and Institutions: Get off your #$*%&#g Ass and Build that #$*%&#g Bike
Structures or Institutions?
Human Nature and Political Institutions
The Reality of Political Institutions
Simgovernment

6. El Grande Loco Casa Blanca-The Executive (in Bad Spanish)
Oh Captain, My Captain
The Scorpion King on Grandpa’s Farm
Kings and Presidents
The Democratic Executive

7. The Confederacy of Dunces— The Legislative (Not in Bad Spanish)
A Dreary Discussion of Democratic Legislatures
Intermission
A Redundant Repetition of Our Theme
A Tired Attempt to Make it Interesting
A Dreary Bleakness in the Authoritarian Gloom

8. Brazil our Bureaucracy-Do we even need to Bother with the Jokes?
Bureaucracy, It Goes To Eleven
So What Is A Bureaucracy?
There Be Flaws in Yonder Bureaucracy, Obviously

9. Courts and Law: Politics behind the Gavel
Law and Politics
The Functions of Courts
Trial Courts and Appellate Courts
Legal Systems
Jurisprudence
Types of Law
Constitutional Courts

10. Not Quite Right, but Still Good: The Democratic Ideal in Modern Politics
Arrow’s Theorem
Democracy and the Liberal Ideal
An Economic Theory of Democracy
The Real versus the Ideal, Again

11. Media, Politics and Government: Talking Heads are Better than None
Reality and Beyond
The Whole China Charade
Your New Brain and the Creation of Reality
News Media and Politics
A Vast Conspiracy?
Understanding the Distortions Is the Key

12. International Politics: Apocalypse Now and Then
Causes of War
Back To Anarchy
World War I Was Unpleasant
Realism and War
Challenging the Realist Paradigm

Chapter 13 was Confiscated for Your Protection

14. Political Culture: Sex & Agriculture, Getting Rucked Explains it All
Political Culture
Applying Political Culture

15. The Lastest and Bestest Chapter

“The slightly irreverent, humorous approach of the authors went over well with my students; I appreciated the sophisticated yet accessible treatment of the philosophical roots and theoretic structure of the study of politics. It worked very well with my approach to introducing political science; using the book with films and current events facilitated dynamic and far-ranging discussion.”

“In all of my class lectures, I frequently mention films, books, and TV shows that illustrate a point of political interest. When Van Belle and Mash first released their delightful text, I found a book to use whose ‘kindred spirit’ matched my approach. It is fun, funny, informative, and most importantly, it serves up politics to a generation of students who have been socialized by the entertainment media.”

“As an instructor who struggles to animate students about the importance politics in their daily lives, this text accomplishes the almost impossible--it makes students smile and even laugh about politics. The framing of political theory in such a way that challenges students to think and to internalize ideas is a major accomplishment. As a supplementary reader it enriches and brings ideas to life while providing much needed substance to class discussions.”

“A Novel Approach to Politics is a must-use textbook for any instructor who wishes to gain and maintain student interest in political science. Van Belle and Mash make politics come alive with their use of fictional stories and historical examples to illustrate political concepts. Students constantly comment that they find the A Novel Approach to Politics to be both engaging and enjoyable to read. Often getting students to read a textbook is like pulling teeth, with A Novel Approach to Politics, this is one dentist visit that students actually enjoy.”

Sent to Earth shortly before Krypton exploded, Doug VanBelle was raised by gorillas in Africa and then bitten by a radioactive spider while on a high school field trip. None of that helped much at all. He misspent his youth-and a bit more-trying to find a violent competitive sport that did not cause him serious harm, but the four times he broke his nose suggest that he is slow to learn. Somewhere in there, there was a bunch of degrees and some other learnin' stuff. He was awarded a full scholarship in Chemical Engineering, dropped out after the first year, went through seven other majors, failed a creative writing elective, took a semester off to work in the Alaskan commercial fishing industry and somehow still managed to graduate on time. He is now a political science professor who writes science fiction and teaches in the media studies programme at Victoria University of Wellington. He is the former president of both the Foreign Policy Analysis and International Communication research sections of the International Studies Association, the Editor in Chief of Foreign Policy Analysis, and he has written extensively on theories of political decision making and the role of news media in international relations.

Spurred on by the blatant discrimination inherent in the statement "Trix are for Kids," at age 4 Ken Mash attempted to file a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the rabbit and other animals similarly situated. After three errors in one inning squashed his dreams of playing for the Mets, his overactive justice complex led him to pursue a career as a lawyer and politician. While earning his B.A. in political science he discovered what those jobs were really like. Thus, Ken's next degree was in mixology. Eighteen months later, his fiancée informed him that she was leaving town to do graduate work and that she would go either with him or without him. A couple of degrees later, he is currently a political science professor at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania, where he is co-director of the honors program and the pre-law advisor. He has delivered numerous papers and talks on American politics, constitutional law, and civil liberties, and he is very active in the faculty association. He currently resides in Nanticoke, PA, with his wife and four children where he is now content in knowing that his parents were mistaken when, as a child, they told him that he was wasting his time watching T.V. and movies.

Student Resources
http://www.cqpress.com/cs/novel/
A full companion website with chapter summaries, study questions, interactive flashcards, multiple choice quizzes, and annotated web links.

Instructor's Resources available for adopters!

Instructor’s Resources
http://college.cqpress.com/instructors-resources/novel/
An appendix of fiction resources is included in the book, but is augmented for instructors to include discussion and essay questions to help kick off discussion groups and writing assignments focused on particular movies and books.

There is also a test bank that will help instructors create exams using multiple-choice and short-answer questions, testing on all of the major political science concepts in the book.

PowerPoint lecture slides round out this impressive package of resources.