The Oxford Handbook of Political Science

“I was having drinks with the editor of OUP, congratulating me on the success of the new handbook – ‘Wouldn’t you like to do some more?’ And I said, ‘Yes, okay. What about some handbooks for each sub-discipline of the field? I’ll get a specialist in each to organize them.’ These were all long books, and the market was American graduate schools. You have to sit field exams in three subfields of political science, and these handbooks would serve as a resource textbook for graduate students across the country. It worked out pretty well. Then, at the end of the day, I consolidated those ten handbooks into my one Oxford Handbook of Political Science by choosing four chapters from each. That’s how I produced my second overview of the discipline as a whole.” Read more...

The Best Political Science Books

Robert E. Goodin, Political Scientist