Governance in Contemporary Germany: The Semisovereign State Revisited. Edited by Simon Green and William E. Paterson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 350 pages. $75.00 cloth, $35.00 paper.

This is a rare thing indeed. Edited volumes tend to contain a hodgepodge of contributions only loosely centered around some theme. The hapless editors are too often left to finesse an introductory link among a series of articles that are, in fact, only vaguely related. In the present case, however, we have an edited volume planned and implemented around a clear vision. If not for the list of contributors (luminaries in the scholarship of German politics), one might easily take this book for a single-authored text.