These words were written by Duncan Black on the first page of The Theory of Committees and Elections (1958). Nearly forty years later, they still apply to books that address the analytical theory of politics. Mathematics is an important language of analysis. Students who know the rules of grammar and syntax in mathematics will find it easier to grasp the work immediately. What of students with little math background? Well, by the end of the book you will have learned some mathematics and some political theory. We hope that you will also be persuaded that the two go together.

Our hope for this book is that the reader will think of theories of politics as a form of analysis. The word “political” derives from the Greek politicos, a word that does not translate well into English. In ancient Greece, politics had to do with the participation of citizens in the government of their “polis,” or city. The Greek word has to do with both the process of decision by government and the quality of those decisions. A nuanced reading of Greek thinkers of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. is hard for modern citizens of the West.