Parliament and parliamentarism : a comparative history of a European concept /

It was a bad (but accurate) omen when the binding of this reviewer's copy's broke upon first opening. Although subtitled a "comparative history of a European concept," comparisons are few in the 20 (overwhelmingly country-based) essays by 24 (well-qualified) authors covering 14 (overwhelmingly Western) European countries, and the "concept" is often muddied. One might summarize that the fundamental problem is that the book's reach exceeds its grasp, but exactly what that reach seeks, much less what is actually grasped, is unclear. The essays average little more than ten pages each, and most are superficial and unlikely to teach much to anyone sufficiently informed to understand them. In theory, the book's organizing principle is to discuss parliamentary deliberation, representation, responsibility, and sovereignty from three standpoints ("historical, discursive and political"), but the distinction between "historical" and "political" is unclear, and the "discursive" analyses resemble a solution looking for a problem (not to mention being studded with arcane words such as epideictic and prooemium). Germany, France, and Britain get multiple chapters, but other countries have only one (or part of one) or are entirely neglected (most strikingly, the entire Hapsburg and Ottoman empires and their European successor states). Summing Up: Not recommended. --Robert J. Goldstein, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor