Keeping the Republic
Power and Citizenship in American Politics, The Essentials
- Christine Barbour - Indiana University, USA
- Gerald C. Wright - Indiana University, USA
“I consistently recommend the book to [colleagues] who are teaching American government for the first time. It is easy to use, and it provides all of the basics that any student would ever need to know. It is easy for students to read, and it challenges their preconceived notions about the world...”
—James W. Stoutenborough, Idaho State University
Keeping the Republic gives students the power to
- examine the narrative of what's going on in American politics,
- distinguish fact from fiction and balance from bias, and
- influence the message through informed citizenship.
Keeping the Republic draws students into the study of American politics, showing them how to think critically about “who gets what, and how” while exploring the twin themes of power and citizenship. Students are pushed to consider how and why institutions and rules determine who wins and who loses in American politics, and to be savvy consumers of political information.
The thoroughly updated Ninth Edition considers how a major component of power is who controls the information, how it is assembled into narratives, and whether we come to recognize fact from fiction. Citizens now have unprecedented access to power – the ability to create and share their own narratives – while simultaneously being even more vulnerable to those trying to shape their views. The political landscape of today gives us new ways to keep the republic, and some high-tech ways to lose it.
Throughout the text and its features, authors Christine Barbour and Gerald Wright show students how to effectively apply the critical thinking skills they develop to the political information they encounter every day. Students are challenged to deconstruct prevailing narratives and effectively harness the political power of the information age for themselves.
Up-to-date with 2018 election results and analysis, as well as the impact of recent Supreme Court rulings, shifting demographics, and emerging and continuing social movements, Keeping the Republic, Ninth Edition is a much-needed resource to help students make sense of politics in America today.
Keeping the Republic, The Essentials is identical to the full version of the text, minus the three policy chapters.
A Complete Teaching & Learning Package
SAGE vantage Digital Option
Engage, Learn, Soar with SAGE vantage, an intuitive digital platform that delivers Keeping the Republic, Ninth Essentials Edition textbook content in a learning experience carefully designed to ignite student engagement and drive critical thinking. Built with you and your students in mind, it offers easy course set-up and enables students to better prepare for class. Contact your rep to learn more.
SAGE Premium Video
Included in SAGE vantage! SAGE Premium Video boosts comprehension and bolster analysis— featuring animations of basic American Government concepts and recent news clips connected to key topics in the book. Preview a video about influences on political opinion.
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SAGE course outcomes: Measure Results, Track Success
Outlined in your text and mapped to chapter learning objectives, SAGE course outcomes are crafted with specific course outcomes in mind and vetted by advisors in the field. See how SAGE course outcomes tie in with this book’s chapter-level objectives at edge.sagepub.com/ barbour9e.
CQ Press Lecture Spark
Designed to save you time and ignite student engagement, these free weekly lecture launchers focus on current event topics tied to key concepts in American government. Access this week’s topic.
Supplements
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- chapter-specific study questions that allow students to engage with the material; and
- exclusive access to influential SAGE journal and reference content that ties important research and scholarship to chapter concepts to strengthen learning
Instructors: SAGE coursepacks and SAGE edge online resources are included FREE with this text. For a brief demo, contact your sales representative today.
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Don’t use an LMS platform? No problem, you can still access many of the online resources for your text via SAGE edge.
With SAGE coursepacks, you get:
- quality textbook content delivered directly into your LMS;
- an intuitive, simple format that makes it easy to integrate the material into your course with minimal effort;
- assessment tools that foster review, practice, and critical thinking, including:
- diagnostic chapter pre tests and post tests that identify opportunities for improvement, track student progress, and ensure mastery of key learning objectives
- test banks built on Bloom’s Taxonomy that provide a diverse range of test items with ExamView test generation
- activity and quiz options that allow you to choose only the assignments and tests you want
- instructions on how to use and integrate the comprehensive assessments and resources provided;
- assignable data exercises in each chapter help students build essential data literacy skills using interactive data visualization tools from SAGE Stats and U.S. Political Stats. Drawing on key data series ranging from demographic patterns to state budgets to voting behavior, these exercises offer students a dynamic way to analyze real-world data and think critically about the stories behind the numbers.
- assignable SAGE Premium Video (available on the SAGE vantage platform, linked through SAGE coursepacks) that is tied to learning objectives, and curated and produced exclusively for this text to bring concepts to life, featuring:
- Corresponding multimedia assessment options that automatically feed to your gradebook
- Comprehensive, downloadable, easy-to-use Media Guide in the Coursepack for every video resource, listing the chapter to which the video content is tied, matching learning objective(s), a helpful description of the video content, and assessment questions
- 26 “Topics in American Government” videos that recap the fundamentals of American politics in every chapter—from the Bill of Rights to voter turnout to the powers of the presidency
- Over 36 News Clips from the Associated Press that bring extra coverage of current events into the book, connecting multiple, brief 2- to 4-minute news clips to core American government chapter content
- chapter-specific discussion questions to help launch engaging classroom interaction while reinforcing important content;
- exclusive SAGE journal and reference content, built into course materials and assessment tools, that ties influential research and scholarship to chapter concepts;
- editable, chapter-specific PowerPoint® slides that offer flexibility when creating multimedia lectures so you don’t have to start from scratch;
- sample course syllabi with suggested models for structuring your course that give you options to customize your course to your exact needs;
- lecture notes that summarize key concepts on a chapter-by-chapter basis to help you with preparation for lectures and class discussions; and
- all tables and figures from the textbook
“The book is a concise read; has updated photos and images, plus a sizeable portion of historical images and events. This is a rounded book…The book does well by [integrating] a discussion of citizenship and its broader implication for the extant political culture.”
“The content is thorough and clearly broken into separate sections which convey concepts in a manner that students can focus on systematically…The ninth edition contains a tremendous amount of valuable information and I am excited about the extent of the content and the way the content is organized… The book’s updated theme of power and citizenship and the ways the control of the political narrative has been translated into political power and how it has shifted within the new social media is refreshingly timely.”
“I consistently recommend the book to [colleagues] who are teaching American government for the first time. It is easy to use, and it provides all of the basics that any student would ever need to know. It is easy for students to read, and it challenges their preconceived notions about the world...”
Sample Materials & Chapters
1. Power and Citizenship in American Politics
2. The Politics of the American Founding
