An important assignment this term is a review of a current book on public policy. By current, I prefer to see reviews of books published in the last two years, and, particularly, of books that do not yet have a lot reviews yet.

On this page I provide you with some links to resources that will help you find new books in the field.

Perhaps the easiest way, of course, is to browse the library for new books. You may browse the NCSU Library in person, or on line. For example, I found my book Lessons of Disaster in the catalog at call number JK468 .P64 B585 2006. I could simply show up to the library and browse around that area, or I could select the "Browse Shelf" link in the record, and see a whole bunch of books--not all of which are suitable for this course--that appear "before" or "after" my book in card catalog order. You could do this with any book, such as the books in our required readings.

The next place I would look would be at the Chronicle of Higher Education's web site, specifically at http://chronicle.com/research/. You can scroll down the page under "publishing" and browse "This week's list" of new books. Don't restrict yourself to books just in Public Policy or Political Science. I might well find a good book to review in American Studies, Business, Communication, Criminal Justice, Ecology, Sociology, and so on.

You will likely find that this weeks's list is pretty thin, so it would be good to look at prior weeks' lists. To do so, click on "search" under "publishing" and then either use a search term or browse the weekly lists. This may seem tedious, but it will give you a good picture of the current state of publishing in the field.

Another good place to look is at amazon.com, because their web site has become something of a reference database unto itself. Thus, if you look up, say, Baumgartner and Jones's Agendas and Instability in American Politics you will see that other books link to this listing under "Customers who bought this item also bought." Later in the page you will find a list of books that cite this book (good for finding newer work) and a list of books this book cites (for locating this book in the discipline). And, at the bottom of the page, you can do a search using amazon's keywords, which include "Political Planning," "Public Policy--General," and "Policy Sciences." This can help you narrow down books. Of course, you needn't buy any book you find--you can search for it at the NCSU library or any other library to which you have access.

You can also browse the pages of publishers that are active in public policy. This list is a very partial list of sources, in two senses: partial because it is not comprehensive, and partial because I tend to favor certain publishers (like Georgetown) over others. With that in mind, if you find a good source of book lists, please let me know.

Publishers and Book Series:

Duke University Press: http://www.dukeupress.edu/

Cambridge University Press: http://www.cambridge.org/americas/default.asp

Georgetown University Press: http://www.press.georgetown.edu/

Publishes a very strong list in political science and related fields. Within the Political Science section, the American Governance and Public Policy, Controversies in Public Policy, and Public Management and Change series are very strong, and worthy of your consideration.

University of Chicago Press: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/

One of the nation's best academic presses. Click on "new releases by subject" in the upper left corner for book ideas.

Lynne Rienner: http://www.rienner.com/home

MIT Press: http://mitpress.mit.edu/main/home/default.asp

Very strong in political science and, not surprisingly, in Science, Technology and Society studies. Also worth looking at for environmental policy and New Media studies.

Oxford University Press: http://www.oup.com/us/

Stanford University Press: http://www.sup.org/

University of California Press: http://www.ucpress.edu/

University Press of Kansas: http://www.kansaspress.ku.edu/

UNC Press: http://uncpress.unc.edu/

Again, this is far from an exhaustive list: please provide suggestions based on what you are reading this semester!