When you want to know what's happening in the White House or on Capitol Hill, turn to this objective, comprehensive resource for concise answers to your questions.

When it comes to the vagaries of language in American politics, its uses and abuses, its absurdities and ever-shifting nuances, its power to confound, obscure, and occasionally to inspire, William Safire is the language maven we most readily turn to for clarity, guidance, and penetrating, sometimes lacerating, wit. Safire's Political Dictionary is a stem-to-stern updating and expansion of the Language of Politics, which was first published in 1968 and last revised in 1993, long before such terms as Hanging Chads, 9/11 and the War on Terror became part of our everyday vocabulary. Nearly every entry in that renowned work has been revised and updated and scores of completely new entries have been added to produce an indispensable guide to the political language being used and abused in America today. Safire's definitions--discursive, historically aware, and often anecdotal--bring a savvy perspective to our colorful political lingo. Indeed, a Safire definition often reads like a mini-essay in political history, and readers will come away not only with a fuller understanding of particular words but also a richer knowledge of how politics works, and fails to work, in America. From Axis of Evil, Blame Game, Bridge to Nowhere, Triangulation, and Compassionate Conservatism to Islamofascism, Netroots, Earmark, Wingnuts and Moonbats, Slam Dunk, Doughnut Hole, and many others, this language maven explains the origin of each term, how and by whom and for what purposes it has been used or twisted, as well as its perceived and real significance. For anyone who wants to cut through the verbal haze that surrounds so much of American political discourse, Safire's Political Dictionary offers a work of scholarship, wit, insiderhood and resolute bipartisanship.

From the vantage point of the 2016 presidential election and the deepening polarization of American politics in recent decades, it is striking how much more distant the Reagan-Bush era of the 1980s and early 1990s seems compared to the years that have actually passed. Whither the Republican Party of yesteryear? Like reincarnated characters from Samuel Beckett’s classic play Waiting for Godot, many disillusioned conservatives in the new millennium continue to search obdurately and in vain for a leader who embodies the acclaimed leadership traits of Ronald Reagan. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of the Reagan-Bush Era contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, events, institutions, policies, and issues. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about this era.

This Dictionary offers a fresh, up-to-date look at US government and politics, explaining and where necessary demystifying the key terms used in discussion of the political system.Major figures, events, ideas, movements and Supreme Court cases relevant to a study of the American political system are included with the aim of allowing readers to develop a deeper knowledge and understanding of the area. The Dictionary also raises key issues and areas of contention and academic debate.Coverage is comprehensive, with c.400 entries, each providing analysis of the subject. Terms are presented in an A-Z format with cross-referencing where appropriate.

"Any short list of major analyses of Congress must of necessity include David Mayhew’s Congress: The Electoral Connection." —Fred Greenstein In this second edition to a book that has achieved canonical status, David R. Mayhew argues that the principal motivation of legislators is reelection and that the pursuit of this goal affects the way they behave and the way that they make public policy. In a new foreword for this edition, R. Douglas Arnold discusses why the book revolutionized the study of Congress and how it has stood the test of time.