• Editor's Note


• Introduction


• I. Living Constitutionalism: Activism Unleashed


• II. Originalism: Activism Masquerading as Restraint


• III. Political Process Theory: A Third Way Down the Rabbit Hole


• IV. Pragmatism: Activism Through Antitheory


• V. The Failure of Cosmic Constitutional Theory

J. Harvie Wilkinson III was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit by Ronald Reagan. He has served on that court since 1984 and as its Chief Judge from 1996 to 2003. He has been frequently on the short list of prospects for the Supreme Court and is regarded as one of the nation's premier appellate jurists. His books include From Brown to Bakke: The Supreme Court and School Integration, 1954-1978. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

What underlies this development? In this concise and highly engaging work, Federal Appeals Court Judge and noted author (From Brown to Bakke) J. Harvie Wilkinson argues that America's most brilliant legal minds have launched a set of cosmic constitutional theories that, for all their value, are undermining self-governance.