Embedded Files
David Prindle is a government professor at the University of Texas who has written books in various fields of politics, including oil, Hollywood, evolution, and the history of American political and economic thought. He has also co-authored various editions of a Texas politics textbook since 1991.
Paradox of Democratic Capitalism
There are histories of political thought and of economic thought. This is a history of the interactions between the two. It has two themes: 1. The constant tension, through American history, between capitalism and democracy; and 2. The constant search for a natural law of politics and economics, a search that always fails.
Politics of Evolution
A discussion of the "outside" politics of evolution--the conflict between the scientific "Darwinist" theory and the religious theory from the book of GENESIS in the Old Testament--focusing on the political controversy over what to teach in public-school biology classes. The major theme is the question of whether democracy or science should prevail in the public policy of education.
Politics of Glamour
The history of hardball politics in the labor union that represents film and television actors. What positions on labor politics do "conservative" actors take, and why; what positions do "progressive" actors take, and why? How do world-famous celebrities behave when they are participating in real-world politics within their own union?
Risky Business
An analysis of the way the peculiar economics of the film and television industries creates a peculiar psychology, which creates a peculiar sociology, which creates a peculiar politics. Why do even the rich and powerful in Hollywood tend to be liberals, even extreme liberals, in American politics?
Stephen Jay Gould
An explanation of, and analysis of, the "inside" politics of evolution--that is, controversies within the discipline of evolutionary biology that have larger political implications--as revealed through an examination of the ideas of Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, and the arguments he had with other biologists. Is there a politically correct way to do biology, or is real science politically neutral? Gould's position on this issue may be surprising.
Petroleum Politics
For more than a century, the oil and gas industries in Texas have been rent by a series of political/economic controversies--independents versus majors, producers versus pipelines, producers versus environmentalists, Texans versus Yankees, producers versus consumers, and more. The Railroad Commission, the state agency that regulates the industry, has been in the thick of these fights. What explains the public policies the Commissioners have adopted over the decades, and can those policies be defended in terms of the public interest?
Texas Politics
There is an ideal polity of democratic theory. How close does the government of Texas come to that ideal, what explains its imperfections, and is it moving closer to or drawing away from the ideal?
Stephen Jay Gould and the Politics of Evolution
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