In both these short volumes, Ruth Lane assumes an optimis-tic stance, generally within the mainstream of political sci-ence, and attempts to synthesize past and present trends in aneffort to show progress. She argues in The Art of ComparativePolitics that, despite the disparate approaches, real advanceshave occurred within the field. Her interpretative essayfocuses on the recent history of the field, with an assessmentof the behavioral movement during the 1960s and subsequentemphases on development, state, grassroots and peasantpolitics, and the new institutionalism. In Political Science inTheory and Practice she affirms that a core consensus hasappeared in the independent investigations of prominentpolitical scientists. Thus, a coherent working model of polit-ical behavior guides political scientists to understand politicalrealities. She argues that this concrete model coincides withscientific realism and the current understanding of a philos-ophy of science.