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PerseusWizardry  10mo ago (text post)   778 thread views

What are the best textbooks for understanding American politics/contemporary public issues?

I am embarking on a self-study of American politics in the hopes of becoming generally fluent and comfortable understanding the issues of our day. That said, I don't want to study at such a narrow level (i.e. the news cycle) that what I learn will stop being relevant in two weeks. I have a sense of which general areas I should study, but not which textbooks are ideal. I am open to suggestions! (My background: I just have a BA in philosophy and a BA in psych.)

I assume I should probably read a textbook on:

  1. Economics

  2. The American Public Policy Process

  3. American History

  4. World History, esp Modern Europe and the Americas since 1800

  5. Comparative Politics/History of Major Political Ideas?/Explanation of major ideologies?

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The problem with trying to study modern history is that the world is simply changing too quickly for definitive conclusions! The whole truth is rarely revealed when things happen. Today, people think google is immortal, and yet, 20 years from now, we'll look back at the memoirs of the executives and project directors and see that the writing was on the wall when they unambiguously choked on AI development and dropped the ball to Microsoft and Meta.

Studying the past is much easier, since rumors get cleaned up and facts get checked.

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