Rarely do we have an opportunity to see the intimate workings of one of our major political institutions through the eyes of not just a participant but a participant who is a political scientist as well. And that is probably both the strength and weakness of the third edition of this excellent memoir by David Price. His account of running for and serving in Congress is often, at the same time, too in depth and too superficial to find the right audience.

I could build a course on the Congress around this book. However, I wish that Price would “punch up” illustrations of theoretical points. For example, on page 15 in describing his first primary race he writes: “Mainly, the organized groups and political action committees (PACs) stayed out of the primary. Their rule of thumb is generally to support incumbents if they have been reasonably receptive to the group's concerns” [my emphasis]. In fact, the legislative politics literature (e.g., see John W. Kingdon, Congressmen's Voting Decisions, 1989) shows that interest groups almost always support their friends who also happen to be incumbents, regardless of party or ideological affiliation. One might get the impression from reading Price's account that interest group behavior in this case was unique to his situation. But it is not. Why not use this opportunity as an illustration of a general and crucial characteristic of interest group behavior?

But maybe Price is not aiming his book at the classroom market. That is understandable given the tendency of textbook publishers to hermetically seal their textbook publishing off from their publishing activities aimed at a more general readership. Once you write a textbook, do not expect to see it at the local Barnes & Noble. But if Price is writing this book for the general reader, his pacing and attention to detail may assume that the reader knows too much. For example, in his sometimes dizzying discussion of three budget cycles on page 154, he writes: “The House passed the Democratic budget resolution on March 18, 1993, by a 243–183 margin, with no Republican support and eleven Democratic defections. But there were already indications, particularly in the Senate, that the votes would be harder to come by when particular tax increases and entitlement cuts were specified in a reconciliation bill. Indeed, the politicking that went into initial House passage of the reconciliation bill on May 27 (219–213) and final approval of the conference report on August 5 with one vote to spare (218–216) was the most intense I have experienced during my time in the House.” I know what this means but how many other readers will? Not my students, certainly, and probably not someone without congressional experience who has a good general education. That leaves this book with a limited audience unless it is incorporated as part of an integrated course design.

But that is not to say that for people who study politics and American politics in particular this book is not a fascinating read. I enjoyed reading it in its first edition as much as I enjoyed reading it in its third. And now we have the added bonus of a comparison between the House as it was prior to the 1994 Republican takeover and the House as it is now. And it is in this comparison that the book has its greatest value.

Price's real strength is in his analysis and interpretation of recent trends. His chapter on parties and partisanship is one of the best commentaries available on the substance and tactics of the Republican “revolution” in Congress. And his chapters on ethics and religion in politics are worth the price of the book. These are the strongest chapters in the new edition.

American politics, it seems, is at a crossroad. Too little of the description of that phenomenon is consigned to the popular press. Scholars have not had time to get a handle on what is happening. So it is into that niche that the third edition of Price's book fits quite well, and it is in that capacity that The Congressional Experience performs a valuable service.