Election Season

2012 is an election year, and currently the Republican Party is scrambling to get a strong candidate to run against Obama in November. So with all the buzz around political candidates, I decided to browse the reference stacks today for anything useful about past presidential elections. I was looking for something I could give to a high school student composing a paper for a political science or American History or AP Government class—and I came across a thin paperback volume published by CQ Press, called Presidential Elections: 1789-2004.

The first thing I noticed was the pictures. Though black and white, they are crisp and clean. We had many other books on the subject in our reference collection but nothing as visually stimulating as this book. The other thing that made me pull it from the shelf was the variety of clear, simple maps of the United States, showing how each state voted in every single election from 1789 to 2004. I like that because maps and charts like that work well for student research.

I also love that this book is elegantly well-written and thoroughly well-cited. From the little bit that I read, I learned a lot. There’s an introduction describing the process of nominating candidates and the kinds of candidates that have been successful, followed by a Chronology of Presidential Elections which describes how the electoral process has evolved over the years, and gives a detailed description of each presidential election beginning with Washington’s first. Then there are maps, charts showing voter turnout in each state and where the popular vote went, a section on the minor candidates, and the last few sections are about the electoral college (including the maps I described above). All in all, a great book for students and researchers on political science or American history.

Dewey Decimal Number: 324.973

Rating: 5Q, 4P