Representing perhaps the most celebrated English historian since Gibbon, this collection of a series of F.W. Maitland's (1850-1906) later essays is designed to bring his thought to the attention of political theorists and political scientists, as well as historians. The essays are about the historical origins of the state, and many of their themes--the limits of state power, the interrelationship between states and corporations--are of continuing relevance today.