Preface This book, like the first edition, is the product of our personal fascination and professional experience with a most complex and perplexing body, the United States Congress. As academic political scientists, we have written technical studies about Congress and its lawmakers; taught undergraduate and graduate courses; conducted workshops for officials in this country and in Europe, Africa, and Latin America; and tried to interpret congressional trends for wider audiences through lectures and writings. We also have been privileged to serve as professional staff members for several House and Senate committees and commissions that have attempted to reexamine congressional organization and operations. Finally, we serve as \"in-house\" researchers in the oldest of the four legislative support agencies, the Congressional Research Service. In writing this book, we have in mind both general readers seeking an introduction to the modern Congress and college or university students taking courses on the legislative process and national policy making. The book has as its organizing theme the tensions between Congress as a collection of individuals and Congress as an institution, but we have tried not to allow this theme to obscure treatment of the history, structure, behavior, and policy role of Congress. As our first edition went to press in 1981, the Republicans had just captured the Senate for the first time in a generation, and the Reagan juggernaut was in full swing on Capitol Hill. It was one of those rare moments--only the fourth in this century--when the irresistible momentum of presidential leadership, backed by popular support, swept aside congres- sional roadblocks to effect far-reaching shifts in the political agenda and programmatic priorities. XV
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