This is a collection of Wildavsky's essays on federalism produced over the latter part of his career. It is the second title in a series of his posthumous collected writings published by Transaction. Federalism is not a conventional collection on comparative federal systems, rather, it deals with what federalism means, how it should work, and how it has been abused by those in power who protest their commitment to federal principles and practices but acted otherwise. Wildavsky's analyses are concentrated mainly on American federalism after Lyndon Johnson's Great Society of the 1960s that brought great changes to the American federal system. The essays trace the progress of Wildavsky's thought as he first argues that true federalism is noncentralization, then to federalism as competitive, and then combines both in reasserting that real federalism is possible only in a confederation.