In the last decade, a number of books have examined Classical Legal Thought, also known as formalism or orthodox legal thought, through the lens of intellectual history. These books grapple not only with legal doctrine, but also with the question why at certain historical moments particular ideas are considered important, why such ideas are challenged by other ideas, and how such ideas must be understood against a larger social and political background. William M. Wiecek joins this tradition and has succeeded in the difficult task of writing an intellectual and legal history that should be readily accessible to a wide audience of students, lawyers, and historians, while sensitively situating Classical Legal Thought within the social, economic and political conditions that gave rise to it.