Richard Cosgrove's Scholars of the Law begins with the emergence of the positivist belief that jurisprudence can solve the important social issues of the day. Legal theory in the twentieth century has become narrow and abstract, and contemporary theory, ever anxious to debunk elitism, ironically has become elitist itself. Charting the history of English jurisprudence through its key figures--William Blackstone, Jeremy Bentham, John Austin, Henry Maine, Thomas Erskine Holland, and H. L. A. Hart--Richard Cosgrove argues that jurisprudence must return to its interdisciplinary roots and draw upon economics, politics, and sociology. In short, theory and practice must be recombined.