Tales of the State - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0847685039 ISBN 13: 9780847685035

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1997

Synopsis

The relationship between politics and storytelling is one with a well-established lineage, but public policy analysis has only recently begun to develop its own appreciation of the power of narrative to explain everything from political traditions to cyberspace. This unique collection of original essays helps further that project by surveying stories of and about all kinds of American politics-from welfare, race, and immigration; to workfare, jobs, and education; to gay rights, national security, and the American Dream in an age of economic globalization.

About this title

About the Author:

Sanford F. Schram is visiting professor in the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research at Bryn Mawr College. Philip T. Neisser is associate professor of politics at the State University of New York at Potsdam.

Review:

Tales of the State offers interesting examples of the role of the stories, or narratives, in politics and public policy. The collection overall makes important contributions to a more pluralistic approach to policy analysis. The book contributes to its goal, and it is one worthy of more attention from political scientists. (American Political Science Review)

A fascinating, infuriating, eye-opening book. It succeeds in wedding high literary and anthropological theory with the mundane details of presidents' politicking and policy-makers' number crunching. Readers will swing between resistance to thinking of their own perspective as merely a narrative, and sudden awareness of how this framing really does illuminate some puzzling aspects of the American polity. They may not be fully convinced, but they will certainly be better off for wrestling with the issuesthat this book so cleverly raises... (Jennifer Hochschild, Princeton University, author of Facing Up to the American Dream)

Afascinating,infuriating, eye-opening book. It succeeds in wedding high literary and anthropological theory with the mundane details of presidents' politicking and policy-makers' number crunching. Readers will swing between resistance to thinking of their own perspective as "merely" a narrative, and sudden awareness of how this framing really does illuminate some puzzling aspects of the American polity. They may not be fully convinced, but they will certainly be better off for wrestling with the issues that this book so cleverly raises. (Jennifer Hochschild, Princeton University; author of Facing Up to the American Dream)

About this edition

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0847685039
• ISBN 13: 9780847685035
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288
• Editor: Schram Sanford F., Neisser Philip T.