Thread by @raulpacheco

This mini-thread compiles brief notes on several books I recently purchased and read. I may come back to one or more of them to do a proper thread but right now I am short on time and heavy on writing commitments. I bought in 4 categories: comparative methods, ethnography,

... research methods and water.

I bought @aballes2 ‘s A Future History of Water. I had already read earlier drafts of her entire book manuscript and I am blown away by how good her writing and analysis are. She looks at how water is constructed at the household level.

.@aballes2 asks tough questions that I’ve engaged with in my own research: does paying for water automatically make it a commodity?

Outstanding ethnography in Costa Rica and Brazil.

My next book Edward Schatz’s edited volume on Political Ethnography. You’ll recognize names.

While I have a forthcoming chapter on ethnography in comparative policy analysis (ping me for PDF of proofs) I wish I had a chapter in this excellent collection. Wedeen, Cramer, Pachirat, Yanow, Arias. All household names in the political ethnography field and excellent scholars

So, anthropologists, don’t kill me. I liked Sanjek’s edited volume on fieldnotes very velvet much BUT I still think Van Maanen’s Tales of the Field is the winner for books on field notes.

I still recommend Sanjek’s collection for a graduate course on ethnography.

Last night I was feeling bad because I was going to say that Charles Ragin and Gary Goertz (sociologists both if I’m not mistaken) write the best books on comparative methods (except for Barbara Geddes’ Paradigms and Sand Castles). Geddes is a political scientist.

Truth is...

Then I realized that Mahoney is both sociologist and political scientist, Goertz is actually a political scientist, and I really enjoyed all these books. The Art of Comparison is so well written, agile and refreshing that it may substitute my first two weeks of grad courses on...

... comparative methods in public policy and public administration.

You may ask yourself - "did you not read these books in graduate school?"

I did read a few, particularly the Van Evera, but my books are in boxes in Vancouver. Also, Ragin's is relatively new, 2014.

The Boswell, Corbett and Rhodes (yes, kids, R.A.W. Rhodes of new public management and governance theory fame) is SO easy to read, and so much fun (and so brand new!) cambridge.org/core/books/art…

Ragin is spectacular at explaining comparative method with Boolean algebra. AND...

... Goertz and Mahoney are well, Goertz and Mahoney. They're stars in their own right. I have a couple more books from my recent bounty to discuss, and then I need to get back to writing. The first is the Little Book of Research Writing by Varanya Chubey amazon.com/Little-Book-Re…

Chubey's book also (like all the books I mentioned in this thread) also deserves a thread, but I wanted to mention it because yes, it's a relatively tiny book, but it is CHOCK FULL with excellent writing advice, particularly on how to structure your writing to EXPLAIN things.

Also, whoever recommended Patrick White's Developing Research Questions, I love you and your first martini at ISA 2021 or MPSA 2021 is on my tab.

What an excellent book on developing research questions! macmillanihe.com/page/detail/De…

This book should be required reading, same with,

Chubey's Little Book of Research Writing and Zerubavel's The Clockwork Muse.

I am still blown away by how easily White dissects the different types of research questions and how to formulate them.

ALSO... I have a complaint. I think we need more books by women, minorities.

Varanya Chaubey I believe may be from India, and her book is excellent, and yes, there are the books by Lisa Baglione and Leeanne Powner, but I think we need more, more, more (yes, I also referenced Barbara Geddes).

Anyhow, I wish there were a way to insert links to each tweet.

... because I have writing of my own that engages with the themes posited in each book I am discussing here, but I am also overwhelmed with writing commitments, so that might be for another time/thread.

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