For undergraduate courses in Political Science, including Introduction to Comparative Politics and Introduction to European Politics, Introduction to Politics; and for courses in Cultural Diversity and International Studies. Eminently readable and written with candor and spirit, this 8th edition of Countries and Concepts continues the loose theoretical approach of the previous editions, simply observing that politics is composed of human conflicts or quarrels, forming patterns that can be studied. Analyzing four European nations and Japan at some length and four Third World nations more briefly, this text studies the history, institutions, geography, and political culture of each to provide valuable comparative information in the course of the semester.