As a result of a lifetime of incomparably wide-ranging investigations, Aaron Wildavsky concluded that politics in the United States and elsewhere was a patterned activity, exhibiting recurring regularities. Political values, beliefs, and institutions were neither endlessly varied, nor haphaardly organied. They tended to exhibit a limited range of variation, and were organied in discoverable, predictable ways. In Cultural Analysis, Wildavsky argues that American politics, public law, and public administration are the contested terrain of rival, inescapable political cultures. The value of Wildavskys reconceptualiation of the ideological and social foundations of political conflict, compromise, and coalition is assessed in the forewords.