Books for Prep | |
 List Price: $14.95 Amazon.com's Price: $10.17 You Save: $4.78 (32%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping.
Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 324 EAN: 9780375713798 ISBN: 0375713794 Label: Vintage Manufacturer: Vintage Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 288 Publication Date: September 09, 2003 Publisher: Vintage Release Date: September 09, 2003 Studio: Vintage Related Items:
Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display Editorial Review: Product Description: From the award-winning author of Out of Order—named the best political science book of the last decade by the American Political Science Association—comes this landmark book about why Americans don’t vote. Based on more than 80,000 interviews, The Vanishing Voter investigates why—despite a better educated citizenry, the end of racial barriers to voting, and simplified voter registration procedures—the percentage of voters has steadily decreased to the point that the United States now has nearly the lowest voting rate in the world. Patterson cites the blurring of differences between the political parties, the news media’s negative bias, and flaws in the election system to explain this disturbing trend while suggesting specific reforms intended to bring Americans back to the polls. Astute, far-reaching, and impeccably researched, The Vanishing Voter engages the very meaning of our relationship to our government. Average Rating:
 Rating: - Dated and IncompleteIt's unfair to read a book six years after publication and call it "dated," but unfortunately that is the reality for me. However, the trends portrayed within the book are still dramatic. In 1990, 63% of Americans voted in the presidential election; in 2000 only 51% did. Meanwhile, the number of college graduates has risen, racial bars to voting have fallen, and registration laws have been simplified. (Roughly 10% of Americans cannot vote - eg. felons, compared to eg. 2% in the ... Read More Rating: - An honest but inadequate effortDr. Patterson's book is, as far as I'm aware, the only serious analysis of non-voting in America that makes any effort to address the usual (and false) idea that our high rate of non-participation is somehow harmful, divisive, detrimental to democracy, etc. He presents another point of view, but devotes less than 4 pages to it; in the rest of the book he shows the same bias as other writers. Still, credit where credit is due; the book would be worth reading for this fact alone. Rating: - Want to know more about voter turnout?In response to the reviewer who wants to know more about voter turnout, especially the impact of the Motor Voter Act and election day registration, I recommend the recent book by Martin Wattenberg -- Where Have All the Voters Gone? Rating:  - What is new here?This book is a real disappointment. Patterson seems to think that footnotes compensate for real thought. There are almost 700 footnotes for a book that is substantively less than 200 pages. He seems to substitute polemic liberal nostrums for substantive debate about an important issue for our representative form of government. If that is what passes for scholarly treatment of an issue - then scholarship has declined. There are some interesting and challenging issues about why voters ... Read More Rating:  - Invisible Men?This is a good book to read on its own terms, and after _The Right to Vote_ by A. Keyssar. The disastrous slippage of voter participations, after so much struggle to achieve political power, needs the point by point of social analysis given here, and also the context of its overall history. The author explores many factors in the problem, media bias, primaries, the excessive length of campaign process, along with negative tactics by candidates. A southpaw cynic will surely be suspicious there is always ... Read More 
In association with Amazon.com | |