Mayors and Schools: Minority Voices and Democratic Tensions in Urban Education. By Stefanie Chambers. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006. 240p. $64.50 cloth, $21.95 paper.

Schools In: Federalism and the National Education Agenda. By Paul Manna. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2006. 222p. $26.95.

Interest in the politics of American cities and states has been steadily increasing in recent years, as scholars have rediscovered the importance of studying issues of governance at subnational levels. Recent research has illustrated that the American federal system is both more interconnected than many Washington-centric accounts would lead one to believe and more complicated insofar as the politics of states and local governments do not perfectly reflect national political processes. These two books represent efforts by emerging scholars to leverage the advantages of studying state and local politics in order to address major questions about political institutions in the United States and to make the case for greater incorporation of state and local elements into mainstream accounts of political change.