Anatomy of Amrican politics

Politics," says Mr. Tourtellot, “is the art of the possible and not of the ideal." Yet in this brilliant analysis, spiced with arresting examples from our turbulent political history, he refuses to be pessimistic about the workings of the American gov- ernment.
The mechanics of politics have confounded good men for centuries, and have caused some completely to despair of democracy. In this era when politics touches on our daily lives more closely than in the past, Mr. Tourtellot renders a distinct service in his clarification and illumination of today's political conflicts and trends. His is a lucid, nonpartisan evaluation of American politics, re-examining the political structure of the United States and relating its present to the main current of its past.
The American experiment, so brief in the major political development of the human race, has recaptured the great principles evolved by man as a thinking animal to promote his own welfare and therefore the welfare of his kind. That is the source of its strength.
Mr. Tourtellot shows how the three branches of the government-the Presidency, the Congress and the Supreme Court-serve as the instruments of our democratic processes and how at times they have come into open conflict. The Presidency emerges as the agency for action, the Congress for compromise, and the Supreme Court for moderation. And the author shows that usually our government does reflect the people's will. The basic partisan conflict of politics - and the author uses many striking examples - is surveyed critically as essentially a continuous dispute over how the government can best protect and advance the interests of the people.