Rodney E. Hero is Professor of Political Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is also the author of Latinos and the U.S. Political System (1992), which won the American Political Science Association's Ralph Bunche Award for 1993.

A valuable beginning which largely succeeds in its aim of shedding much needed light on the role of social diversity in American state politics.

• 1: Social Diversity and the Study of State Politics and Policy 2: The Social Diversity Interpretation in Perspective: Reviewing Other Approaches Explaining State Politics 3: Social Diversity and Political Institutions, Political Processes, and Attitudes 4: Social Diversity and Formal Institutions of State Government 5: Social Diversity and State Public Policies, I: Education, Health, Welfare 6: Social Diversity and State Public Policies, II: Other Politics 7: Social Diversity at the Substate Level 8: The Social Diversity Interpretation of State Politics and Policy in Perspective