Boston: Ginn & Co, (1890). Two volumes.  First edition of the author's first book.

Systematic Series, ed. by the University Faculty of Political Science in Columbia College. Volume 1: Sovereignty and Liberty; Volume 2: Government.

An unusually fresh, tight and bright copy, near fine with a little wear to spine tips and corners, boards a little marked, previous owner's bookplate in both volumes.  

John W. Burgess was central to the postbellum rise of American political science, and today he is considered a founding figure of the field.

Burgess and professors at the Columbia College School of Political Science were responsible for founding the American Academy of Political Science, which served as an alumni association for Columbia’s new graduate school. The first political science journal in the United States, Political Science Quarterly, was launched at Columbia in 1886. Over the next quarter century, the Quarterly, which Burgess edited and wrote for, professionalized the fledgling discipline and gave scholars a place to publish original research. Meanwhile, professors at Columbia issued the first collegiate political science textbooks.