Pakistan and Afghanistan: Beyond the Taliban
Juan Cole analyzes political and economic developments in contemporary Pakistan and Afghanistan. He argues that Western preoccupation with “crisis” and “radicalism” in Pakistan has caused observers to miss the success of an expanding white-collar middle class in demanding a rule of law and a return to civilian rule after nearly a decade of military dictatorship. He questions the idea that there is a purely military, and especially Western military, solution to the problem of Talibanism in northwest Pakistan and southern Afghanistan, analyzing the insurgency as several distinct groups driven in part by religious nationalism and anti-imperialism.

What the New Deal Did
David M. Kennedy revisits the New Deal’s relevance to our own time. He concludes that the stubborn persistence of the Great Depression through the decade of the 1930s opened the political space for the New Deal’s greatest accomplishments, all of which were aimed at reducing risk in key sectors of the economy and imparting a measure of security to American life for generations thereafter.

Freedom Fighters and Zealots: Al Qaeda in Historical Perspective
Christopher J. Fettweis argues that too many post-September 11 analyses of terrorism seem to regard the phenomenon as brand new. Terrorism has existed throughout history, and its groups come in two forms: nationalist and ideological. This simple binary typology illuminates a number of important characteristics of terrorism, from group strategy and tactics to overall life expectancy. Perhaps most important, counter-terrorism measures that prove effective against groups in one category will often fail against those in the other.

War Has Almost Ceased to Exist: An Assessment
John Mueller suggests that we may be reaching a point at which war, as conventionally defined, ceases or nearly ceases to exist in both its international and civil varieties. He assesses the phenomenon and speculates about what this development, should it definitively materialize, might suggest about the various explanations and theories scholars and analysts have preferred to explain the problem of war.

Presidential Travel from Eisenhower to George W. Bush: An “Electoral College” Strategy
Emily Jane Charnock, James A. McCann, and Kathryn Dunn Tenpas examine patterns of presidential travel since the Eisenhower years, focusing on the factors that prompt visits to particular states during the first term. The authors argue that electoral considerations are becoming increasingly relevant as presidents decide where and when to travel.

Presidential Leadership in Political Time: Reprise and Reappraisal, Stephen Skowronek
Reviewed by Richard Holtzman

Power and Military Effectiveness: The Fallacy of Democratic Triumphalism, Michael C. Desch
Reviewed by Alexander B. Downes

The American Voter Revisited, Michael S. Lewis-Beck, William G. Jacoby, Helmut Norpoth and Herbert F. Weisberg
Reviewed by Barry C. Burden

The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money, and Minds, David M. Lampton
Reviewed by Robert Ross

Presidents Creating the Presidency: Deeds Done in Words, Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Karlyn Kohrs Campbell
Reviewed by Andrew Rudalevige

Attack Politics: Negativity in Presidential Campaigns Since 1960, Lee Sigelman and Emmett H. Buell, Jr.
Reviewed by Darrell M. West

Citizens and Paupers: Relief, Rights, and Race, from the Freedmen's Bureau to Workfare, Chad Alan Goldberg
Reviewed by Greg M. Shaw

Does Peace Keeping Work? Shaping Belligerents' Choices after Civil War, Virginia Page Fortna ; UN Peacekeeping in Civil Wars, Lise Morjé Howard
Reviewed by Richard Gowan

Ending Wars, Feargal Cochrane
Reviewed by Alex Weisiger

First Strike: Preemptive War in Modern History, Matthew J. Flynn
Reviewed by Whitley Kaufman

From Freedom Fighters to Terrorists: Women and Political Violence, Paige Whaley Eager
Reviewed by Mia Bloom

After the Taliban: Nation-Building in Afghanistan, Amb. James F. Dobbins
Reviewed by Christopher J. Fettweis

America's New Working Class: Race, Gender, and Ethnicity in a Biopolitical Age, Kathleen R. Arnold
Reviewed by Margaret Gray

Do Voters Look to the Future? Economics and Elections, Brad Lockerbie
Reviewed by Robert S. Erikson

Four Hats in the Ring: The 1912 Election and the Birth of Modern American Politics, Lewis L. Gould
Reviewed by Daniel Klinghard

Illegal, Alien, or Immigrant: The Politics of Immigration Reform, Lina Newton
Reviewed by Kristen Hill Maher

Organizing Urban America: Secular and Faith-based Progressive Movements, Heidi J. Swarts
Reviewed by Elisabeth S. Clemens

Redistricting and Representation: Why Competitive Elections are Bad for America, Thomas L. Brunell
Reviewed by David T. Canon

Righting Feminism: Conservative Women and American Politics, Ronnee Schreiber
Reviewed by Joyce Gelb

The Constitution of Electoral Speech Law: The Supreme Court and Freedom of Expression in Campaigns and Elections, Brian Pinaire
Reviewed by Allison R. Hayward

The Power of Money in Congressional Campaigns 1880-2006, David C.W. Parker
Reviewed by Robin Kolodny

The Republican Party and Immigration Politics: From Proposition 187 to George W. Bush, Andrew Wroe
Reviewed by John J. Pitney, Jr.

Spin Cycle: How Research Is Used in Policy Debates, The Case of Charter Schools, Jeffrey R. Henig
Reviewed by John A. Hird

The Age of Impeachment: American Constitutional Culture Since 1960, David E. Kyvig
Reviewed by Timothy M. Cole

Governing Finance: East Asia's Adoption of International Standards, Andrew Walter
Reviewed by Tim Büthe

Judicial Reform as Political Insurance: Argentina, Peru, and Mexico in the 1990s, Jodi S. Finkel
Reviewed by Verónica Michel

Social Foundations of Limited Dictatorship: Networks and Private Protection During Mexico's Early Industrialization, Armando Razo
Reviewed by Roderic Ai Camp

Kenya's Quest for Democracy: Taming Leviathan, Makau Mutua
Reviewed by Stephen Orvis

Kinship and Diasporas in International Affairs, Yossi Shain
Reviewed by Idean Salehyan

The Dynamics of Interstate Boundaries, George Gavrilis
Reviewed by Peter Andreas

The Steps to War: An Empirical Study, John A. Vasquez and Paul D. Senese
Reviewed by Branislav L. Slantchev

Toward the National Security State: Civil-Military Relations during World War II, Brian Waddell
Reviewed by Mark A. Stoler