(cloth); $19.00 (paper).

John Geer’s In Defense of Negativity is an important book, containing a large systematic content analysis of presidential advertising over the past 12 elec-tions. The book addresses several basic questions that have been missing in the debate about the impact of negative ads on the electorate. One of the most important, and most basic, points Geer explores is how negative advertise-ments are built, and how they differ from positive ads. He begins by painting the clearest picture to date of what negative advertising actually looks like. Geer’s book describes the range of strategies candidates use to carry criticism of their opponents. This is a critical step, and his findings may help us to understand why previous studies of ad impact have come to highly disparate conclusions. By describing the contours of negativity in political advertising, the book should help guide the future design of more informative studies of advertising impact on participation, knowledge, interest, and vote choice. The bottom line of this book is that “negative advertising ” is a highly varied and rich category of political communication