Philip Bobbitt, professor of constitutional law at the University of Texas, has served as a senior advisor to the White House, working with both Republican and Democratic administrations, and is a fellow of the American Academy for Arts and Sciences. He is a philosopher, essayist and poet as well as a journalist who writes regularly for the New York Times, the Guardian and the Spectator. His landmark study The Shield of Achilles (2002) traces the development of constitutional law and is regarded as a seminal text on statecraft. He lives in Austin, Washington and London.