This required text + e-book package has been set up set up exclusively for the students of Intro to American Government at the US Air Force Academy.  You are receiving a discounted price that will allow you to purchase directly from the publisher and avoid the bookstore’s markup.  Please click the BUY NOW button and follow the steps to purchase.  If you encounter any issues, please notify your instructor immediately and he or she will contact the publisher.

NOTE: UPS ground is the most affordable shipping option, so make sure to place your order 5-7 business days before classes begin to avoid paying extra for expedited freight!

Check out the online student resources HERE for access to flashcards, practice quizzes, interactive exercises, web links, the authors’ blog, and more useful study tools!

Christine Barbour teaches in the political science department and the Honors College at Indiana University, where she has become increasingly interested in how teachers of large classes can maximize what their students learn. At Indiana, Professor Barbour has been a Lilly Fellow, working on a project to increase student retention in large introductory courses, and a member of the Freshmen Learning Project, a university-wide effort to improve the first year undergraduate experience. She has served on the New York Times College Advisory Board, working with other educators on developing ways to integrate newspaper reading into the undergraduate curriculum. She has won several teaching awards at Indiana, but the two that mean the most to her were awarded by her students: the Indiana University Student Alumni Association Award for Outstanding Faculty (1995-6) and the Indiana University Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists Brown Derby Award (1997). She is currently working on a book about local politics, development and the fishing industry in Apalachicola, Florida.

Gerald C. Wright has taught political science at Indiana University since 1981. He is an accomplished scholar of American politics—his books include Statehouse Democracy: Public Opinion, and Policy in the American States with co-authors Robert S. Erikson and John P. McIver, and he has published over 40 articles on elections, public opinion, and state politics. He has long studied the relationship between citizens, their preferences and public policy. He is currently conducting research with a grant from the National Science Foundation on what influences the character of policy representation in the states and the U.S. Congress, and he is writing a book about representation in the American legislatures. He has been a consultant for Project Vote Smart in the last several elections. Professor Wright is a member of the Freshmen Learning Project at Indiana University, a university-wide effort to improve the first year undergraduate experience by focusing on how today’s college students learn and how teachers can adapt their pedagogical methods to best teach them.

A robust companion website features an impressive array of tools for review, study, and further exploration:

• chapter summaries with learning objectives;
• key-term flashcards;
• self-graded practice quizzes;
• interactive exercises wherein students mine web resources and answer critical thinking questions;
• “Take a Position” exercises pose debate scenarios and offer guidance for how best to develop an argument in favor of or in opposition to a stated position;
• annotated web links to further explore and facilitate research; and
• author Christine Barbour's regularly updated KTRBlog ties news events to the themes and chapters of the text.