Since Introduction to Political Analysis is not a typical text a few guides to its use may prove helpful. This book is not a history of the field. Rather it is designed to trace the evolution of political science as a discipline. It uses contributions of other fields: economics, sociology, psychology, and anthropology. It also incorporates ideas and materials developed abroad. Six dimensions of political science respresenting the main analytical alternatives in the literature, bring all these together but certain exclusions should be noted. International relations has been omitted because despite the richness of some of its theory we consider it to be an applied field (like comparative politics or American government). Theorists who work in international politics themselves favor one or several of the approaches suggested here.