The Invention of the United States Senate. By Daniel Wirls and Stephen Wirls. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. 288p. $49.95 cloth. $18.95 paper.

In a meeting in Moscow some years ago, the former Soviet Union's principal Americanologist, Georgi Arbatov, complained to me quite seriously, “We study your system, and we still do not know how it works.” Probably one reason for Arbatov's expressed puzzlement had to do with the role played in the American governmental system by the United States Senate, of which, at the time of our conversation, I was a member.