"This book is both a work of intellectual history and a contribution to legal philosophy. It represents a serious and philosophically sophisticated guide to modern American legal theory, demonstrating that legal positivism has been a misunderstood and underappreciated perspective throughout most of twentieth-century American legal thought."--BOOK JACKET. "The broad scope of this book ensures that it will be read by philosophers of law, historians of law, historians of American intellectual life, and those in political science concerned with public law and administration."--BOOK JACKET.

Acknowlegments; 1. Why study legal positivism; 2. Positivism and formalism; 3. The varieties of formalism; 4. Legal process and the shadow of positivism; 5. The false choice between the Warren Court and legal process; 6. Fundamental rights and the problem of insatiability; 7. New legal positivism and the incorporation of morality.