Collected here are Edward C. Banfield's most important insights into the American political system. Some of his essays have to do with the structure and functioning of the federal system, others with the nature of public organization, and still others with the causes and supposed cures of the social problems that government is nowadays expected to solve or cope with. Included for the first time in this edition are "Was the Founding an Accident?" and discussions of Tocqueville and of art and the public interest.

Edward C. Banfield has served on many government commissions and has taught at the Universities of Chicago and Pennsylvania and at Harvard.