Synopses & Reviews
Institutions shape every dimension of politics. This volume collects original essays on how such institutions are formed, operated, and changed, both in theory and in practice. Ranging across formal institutions of government such as legislatures, courts, and bureaucracies and intermediary institutions such as labor unions and party systems, the contributors show how these instruments of control give shape to the state, articulate its relationships, and express its legitimacy.
Rethinking Political Institutions captures the state of the art in the study of the art of the state.
Drawing on some of the leading scholars in the field, this volume includes essays on issues of social power, public policy and programs, judicial review, and cross-national institutions. Rethinking Political Institutions is an essential addition to the debate on the significance of political institutions, in light of democracy, social change and power.
Contributors: Elisabeth S. Clemens, Jon Elster, John Ferejohn, Terry M. Moe, Claus Offe, Paul Pierson, Ulrich K. Preuss, Rogers M. Smith, Kathleen Thelen, Mark Tushnet, R. Kent Weaver, Margaret Weir, Keith E. Whittington
Review
"This book is so smart, Charyn has managed to psychoanalyze just about all of us who ever sat there in the dark sucking on Life Savers or sticking magical popcorn like so many extra thumbs into our mouths."-Stanley Elkin,
Synopsis
In Movieland, Jerome Charyn mingles his own life as a moviegoer with the history, romance, and sadness of Hollywood. He meets Paul Newman, Viveca Lindfors, and Mae Clark, the actress who was the original bride of Frankenstein; explores Cinecitta, Mussolini's own Hollywood on the Tiber; recalls his own life as Otto Preminger's house writer (and jester) during Preminger's decline; reinvents the lost years and lost stars of the silent era --Irving Thalberg, Gloria Swanson, and Clara Bow -- and seeks out the hieroglyphics of modern Hollywood; writes of the Nazi officer who saved the Cinematheque Francaise and its library of American films; and pays homage to Hollywood's heroes, victims, goddesses, and neglected lords: Louise Brooks, Raymond Chandler, Carole Landis, Rita Hayworth, Orson Welles, and more.
About the Author
Jerome Charyn was born in the Bronx, New York, in 1937. An author who primarily writes detective stories, Charyn's novels contain a wide array of characters ranging form a gorgeous, headstrong double agent to a greedy, corrupt lawyer. Charyn chronicles the life of Isaac Sidel El Caballo, the Mayor of New York City, in over half a dozen books, including El Bronx, Little Angel Street, Marilyn the Wild, and The Good Policeman. Widely translated, Charyn's novels have broad readership in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece and Japan, as well as the United States. Charyn lives in Paris where he teaches cinema at the American University of Paris.
Exclusive Essay
Read an exclusive essay by Jerome Charyn