Approaching Democracy

This book introduces students to the basics of American Government using the framework of Democracy as an ideal that we continually strive for.

Larry Berman is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Davis, and since 1999 has served as the founding Director of the Universi of California, Washington Center, http://www.ucdc.edu.

Berman is the author or co-author of ten books and numerous articles. His research and publications have focused on the presidency, foreign policy, and the war in Vietnam. The most recent book, No Peace, No Honor has been featured on C-Span's Book TV, the History Channel's Secrets of War, reviewed prominently in The New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Sacramento Bee, and Washington Times. In addition, he has appeared on a number of broadcasts, including Bill Moyers' PBS series, The Public Mind, and David McCullough's American Experience series, Vietnam: A Television History.

Berman has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Science Foundation, as well as several research grants from presidential libraries. He has been a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., and a scholar in residence at the Rockefeller Foundation's Center in Bellagio, Italy.

Berman has received the 1996 Outstanding Mentor of Women in Political Science Award from the Women's Caucus for Political Science. He received the 1994 Bernath Lecture Prize, given annually by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations to a scholar whose work has most contributed to our understanding of foreign relations.

His class on the American presidency is cited in Lisa Birnbach's New and Improved College Guide as one of the most recommended classes for undergraduates at UC Davis. Berman has often conducted a series of live interactive television programs from Washington with his undergraduate classes at UC Davis on the American presidency and American government. The programs are available from PBS Adult Learning.

In addition to his work in political science, Berman is an authority on integrating and reengineering liberal arts education with technology. He regularly presents seminars and workshops on the subject to educators across the United States and has lectured in Australia, China, Germany Israel, France, the Netherlands, and Vietnam on American politics, foreign policy, and multi-media technology in the classroom.

Bruce Allen Murphy is the Fred Morgan Kirby Professor of Civil Rights in the Department of Government and Law at Lafayette College. He is a nationally recognized judicial biographer and scholar on the American Supreme Court, civil rights and liberties, judicial behavior, and judicial biography.

Murphy is the author of many publications, including his newest judicial biography Wild Bill: The Legend and Life of William O. Douglas, America's Most Controversial Supreme Court Justice, which has been selected by the Book-of-the-Month and History book clubs. He also wrote Fortas: The Rise and Ruin of a Supreme Court Justice, which was nominated for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. His best-selling The Brandeis-Frankfurter Connection: The Secret Political Activities of Two Supreme Court Justices, which received the American Bar Association's Certificate of Merit, was listed among The New York Times' Best Books for 1983 and was serialized by The Washington Post. In addition, he edited Portraits of American Politics: A Reader.

Murphy has received numerous teaching awards for his courses in American politics, civil rights and liberties, and Constitutional law. He has been a finalist in the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education's national Professor of the Year competition and was cited as a Best Professor in Lisa Birnbach's New and Improved College Guide. He is listed in both Who's Who in America and Who's Who in the World.