Gabriel A. Almond was one of the most important political scientists of the twentieth century. During his lengthy career, he taught at Brooklyn College, Yale University, Princeton University, and most recently, Stanford University. His many publications range from The American People and Foreign Policy (1950) and The Appeals of Communism (1954) to The Civic Culture (1963), Crisis, Choice, and Change (1973), A Discipline Divided (1990), and seven editions of Comparative Politics Today.

Reflecting an extraordinary career, Ventures in Political Science collects Gabriel Almond's most important work on the development of political science and democratic theory.

An absorbing introduction—providing personal and historical context—precedes Almond's masterful "History of Political Science." Equally notable are essays on capitalism and democracy, the crisis of political culture in the 1960s, and the history of area studies. Two especially evocative pieces, published here for the first time, compare the cultures of communism and fascism and discuss the background of The Civic Culture study.

Significant—and stimulating—this is a not-to-be-missed book for any student of political science.