Contains the author's investigations of issues in literary and legal theory, offering insights into diverse matters ranging from politics and education to literature and culture.

A vigorous debunker of the pieties of both the left and the right, Stanley Fish takes aim at the ideological gridlock paralyzing academic and political exchange in the nineties. Fish is Arts and Sciences Professor of English and Professor of Law at Duke University, and the author of many books.

Mr Fish deflates anointed truths with joyful abandon, and he is at his best in exposing the often baleful effects wrought by mean-spirited defenders of traditional values