Dennis J. Mahoney – författare

In Politics and Progress, author Dennis J. Mahoney describes the emergence of American political science as a separate academic discipline in the era between the Civil War and the First World War, with the pivotal event of the founding of the American Political Science Association in 1903. His book, a testament to the integrity of American political science, chronicles its intellectual and cultural development. According to Mahoney, American political science borrowed its ideas from European, especially German, political science. Subsequently, it was influenced by the notion of scientific progress as exemplified in the writings of American pragmatists and progressivist politics. Mahoney notes that institutionalization in the American academy necessarily required the displacement of earlier approaches to politics, including the tradition of political philosophy and the political science of the American founding. As the discipline grew, it was characterized by its drive toward organization and professionalism, the study of administration (as contrasted with policymaking) and a seemingly ceaseless quest for a distinctive scientifically oriented methodology. These characteristics are maintained in contemporary mainstream political science. Politics and Progress marks an important chapter in American intellectual history and is a vital resource for political scientists researching their roots.

This book represents perhaps the single most important volume to be published on the Constitution during the Bicentennial. With over sixty contributing authors, it brings together the best of American constitutional scholarship for a comprehensive and provocative discussion of the Constitution's history, its principles and its current meaning. Contributing authors to the book range from historians and political scientists to Congressmen and Supreme Court Justices. Some of the better-known contributors include former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill, former Chief Justice Warren Burger, Congressman Philip Crane, lawyer Phillis Schlafly, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Leonard Levy, former United States Senator Eugene McCarthy, and the venerable dean of United States historians, Henry Steele Commager. Most of the articles published in this volume appeared originally as part of the acclaimed New Federalist Papers newspaper series, which has been used by hundreds of newspapers across the country since 1984. The book is arranged into seventeen different sections, each of which focuses on a major constitutional principle or institution. Topic areas include federalism, the separation of powers, Congress, the bureaucracy, the Presidency, the Judiciary, foreign policy, civil rights, economics, constitutional reform, and the relationship between church and state. The sections of the book were designed to parallel the standard subjects covered in an introductory college course. Co-published with Public Research, Syndicated.