Daniel Drezner writes:

“Back in the spring, I hinted that I would be willing to produce a top ten list of must-read books on the international political economy/global political economy (IPE or GPE for those in  the know), provided there was sufficient demand.

Judging by the e-mail response, the demand is robust and quite persistent.  So I’ve decided… to postpone that list for another month or two.

Because you’re not ready yet.

Let’s face it, if you have read this far in the post, it means you’re either:

* A curious professor ready to minimize this page if anyone walks in;
* A grad student seeking the keys to success in the profession;
* An intense undergraduate student who really wants to study IPE.

(Blog Editor’s Note - he curiously leaves off eager publicist/editor curious to see if any of OUR books make the cut)

Before you are ready to ready the ten books in IPE that you have to read, you should first read these ten books on global economic history.”

So, which Princeton University Press titles made the cut? More after the jump…

In case you missed this yesterday because of football fever (go Eagles!), here’s a link to a roundtable discussion with Andrew Gelman held at FireDogLake Salon yesterday. Host Matt Yglesias was joined by several participants to discuss what Yglesias calls “the best book on American electoral politics of the past year” – Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State.

Robert F. Bauer, general consul to the Obama campaign, cited Heather Gerken’s forthcoming book THE DEMOCRACY INDEX: Why Our Election System is Failing and How to Fix It (May 2009) as the primer for on how to improve the election process. You can read more about this here. 

You may also want to check out Heather’s piece in the most recent issue of The American Prospect, which delves a bit more into THE DEMOCRACY INDEX and election reform in general.

Our author and Vanderbilt University Professor David E. Lewis has been discussing the Obama appointments in the media.  His new book THE POLITICS OF PRESIDENTIAL APPOINTMENTS: Political Control and Bureaucratic Performance is a timely new look at how and why presidents use political appointees and how their choices impact government performance–for better or worse.  With Obama’s recent appointees and other vacant cabinet positions, Lewis is the right voice at the right time.  Check out an op-ed piece he wrote for the Nashville Tennessean or today’s feature in the Washington Post. 
 

While most of us were sleeping off an evening of watching election returns, statistician Andrew Gelman was busy crunching numbers and creating a great series of graphs.

Six quick takeaways from his post:

1. The election was pretty close. Obama won by about 5% of the vote, consistent with the latest polls and consistent with his forecast vote based on forecasts based on the economy.

2. As with previous Republican candidates, McCain did better among the rich than the poor.

3. The gap between young and old has increased–a lot.

4. By ethnicity: Barack Obama won 96% of African Americans, 68% of Latinos, 64% of Asians, and 44% of whites. In 2004, Kerry won 89% of African Americans, 55% of Latinos, 56% of Asians, and 41% of whites. So Obama gained the most among ethnic minorities.

5. The red/blue map was not redrawn; it was more of a national partisan swing.

6. The pre-election polls pretty much nailed the national vote.

In a recent op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, Princeton professor and author of Unequal Democracy, Larry Bartels, comments on how the electorate as a whole may be wiser and more rational than any individual.

One of the bestselling books of the 2008 election season has been “Just How Stupid Are We?” by popular historian Rick Shenkman. It presents a familiar collection of bleak results from opinion surveys documenting the many things most Americans don’t know about politics, government and history. “Public ignorance,” Shenkman concludes, is “the most obvious cause” of “the foolishness that marks so much of American politics.”

But is that really true? Does it matter whether voters can name the secretary of Defense or whether they know how long a U.S. Senate term is? The important question is not whether voters are ignorant but whether they make sensible choices despite being hazy about the details. (OK, really hazy.) If they do, that’s not stupid — it’s efficient.

From a recent University of Texas poll:

When asked to identify Obama’s religion, 45 percent of respondents accurately identified him as Protestant, however 23 percent erroneously identified him as Muslim.

In a related article over at History News Network, Thomas Kidd, author of American Christians and Islam: Evangelical Culture and Muslims from the Colonial Period to the Age of Terrorism, asks “How has the prospect of a secret Muslim as President taken such a prominent place among the cyber-myths of this election?” As he notes the roots of this “fear” of Islam has long roots in American culture and history:

American fears about Muslims precede 9/11 by hundreds of years, with origins as early as the founding of the first English colonies in America. History also shows conflicted American attitudes toward Islam, even among conservative Christians, whose views of Islam have ranged from studied respect to apocalyptic revulsion.

Click through to read more on this historical perspective.

Book Culture, an independent bookstore in New York City, is hosting an election eve discussion with Andrew Gelman, author of Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State: Why Americans Vote the Way They Do.

Andrew will be joined by Prof. David Epstein (political science, Columbia University) for a frank discussion of

• What historical data can really tell us about how rich and poor people vote.
• The truth of the red/blue state divide and how it might impact tomorrow’s election.
• What issues really matter to rich and poor voters.
• Why voting is a bit like “buying a Powerball ticket” .

A great discussion is expected, so if you are in the area we urge you to join in the fun!

There’s been a lot of discussion recently about Sarah Palin’s broad-based job approval as governor of Alaska as an indicator of her political skills and a rationale for her selection as vice presidential nominee.  Yes, Sarah Palin is very popular, but it’s not so exceptional for the governor of a small state to be popular.  The most popular governors in America are from small states.

Indeed, at the time of her selection Palin was the fifth most popular governor in America, behind the governors of Nebraska, Utah, Arkansas, and North Dakota–all states with small populations.  It appears that it’s easier to be a popular governor when your state has fewer people.  The governors of South Dakota and Montana are also remarkably popular, while on the other side, the leaders of fourteen of the fifteen largest states have job approval ratings less than 50%. [...]

In a recent Christian Science Monitor article, Larry Bartels, author of Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age, discusses why our economy does historically better under Democratic presidents.

Why the economy fares much better under Democrats

On job and income growth, the record couldn’t be clearer.

Princeton, N.J. - John McCain is a maverick and Barack Obama is a postpartisan problem-solver. But you wouldn’t know it by looking at their economic plans. Both candidates’ proposals faithfully reflect the traditional economic priorities of their respective parties. That makes the track records of past Democratic and Republican administrations a very useful benchmark for assessing how the economy might perform under a President McCain or a President Obama. The bottom line: During the past 60 years, Democrats have presided over much less unemployment and much more robust income growth.

I Sing the Candidate Electric

By Michael Robertson

Worshipping Walt: The Whitman Disciples

By now, the comparisons of Barack Obama to John F. Kennedy have become routine: the youth, the charisma, the idealism, the eloquence. But there is another great American small-d democrat with whom Obama shares even more resemblances: Walt Whitman.

The Walt Whitman most Americans are familiar with may not seem to have much in common with a youthful African-American politician. In the popular imagination Whitman is the Good Gray Poet, a benign figure with one of those big only-in-the-19^th-century beards, author of the tamely patriotic verses “I Hear America Singing” and “O Captain! My Captain!”

Is it necessary to have people in power? Before elections, why do we put so much emphasis on which candidate will produce the most ‘change’? John Stossel examines this issue during an episode of ABC’s 20/20 from Friday, Oct 17. Russel Roberts, author of The Price of Everything: A Parable of Possibility and Prosperity, offered his comments on “Rinkonomics”.