Readings

One of the primary challenges of teaching is the decision that faces all faculty about supporting materials.  All of us have found that we enjoy our subject and that we as faculty are enthusiastic consumers of material about our subject.  But how to persuade the masses (students) that our subject is interesting and worth reading about?  Alternatively, what is the compelling read that also communicates the most important material in the most effective (and cost effective) manner?  These are challenges that we sometimes cannot meet while also offering a substantive course that touches on our core material (the must be taught "known-unknowns").  In my classes I frequently observe to my students that they should read such and such a volume to get a good feel for the policy issue or the cultural context.  I have done this so frequently that I realize that I should create a list so that students in my various classes can look at these suggested readings (generally non-academic) for themselves.  I have organized these readings according to their relationships to my courses.

PLS 230 Introduction to Comparative Politics

On China

Wild Swans

On Iran

Nafisi, Azar - Reading Lolita in Tehran (and probably you should read Lolita)

Majd, Hooman. The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran.

On Afghanistan

Hosseini, Khaled - The Kite Runner

On Pakistan

Mortenson, Greg  and David Oliver Relin  Three Cups of Tea

PLS 316 Women in Politics

Abortion - Pottinger, Stanley. The Fourth Procedure
Adoption - Fessler, Ann. The Girls Who Went Away
Divorce - Horan, Nancy. Loving Frank.
Sexual Assault - Sebold, Alice. Lucky
Women and Catholicism - Wills, Garry. Papal Sin

PLS 332: The Politics of Central America and the Caribbean

Kidder, Tracy - Mountains Beyond Mountains
Farmer, Paul - The Uses of Haiti
Vargas Llosa, Mario - The Feast of the Goat
 

PLS 333: South American Politics

Allende, Isabel The House of the Spirits

Environmental Politics and Policy

Larson, Edward - Evolution's Workshop: God and Science on the Galapagos Islands

Leakey, Richard - Wildlife Wars

Weisman, Alan - The World Without Us

Political Development

McCullough, E  John Adams