Linear arrangements of graphs are a well-known type of graph labeling and are found in many important computational problems, such as the Minimum Linear Arrangement Problem ($\texttt{minLA}$). A linear arrangement is usually defined as a permutation of the $n$ vertices of a graph. An intuitive geometric setting is that of vertices lying on consecutive integer positions in the real line, starting at 1; edges are often drawn as semicircles above the real line. In this paper we study the Maximum Linear Arrangement problem ($\texttt{MaxLA}$), the maximization variant of $\texttt{minLA}$. We devise a new characterization of maximum arrangements of general graphs, and prove that $\texttt{MaxLA}$ can be solved for cycle graphs in constant time, and for $k$-linear trees ($k\le2$) in time $O(n)$. We present two constrained variants of $\texttt{MaxLA}$ we call $\texttt{bipartite MaxLA}$ and $\texttt{1-thistle MaxLA}$. We prove that the former can be solved in time $O(n)$ for any bipartite graph; the latter, by an algorithm that typically runs in time $O(n^4)$ on unlabelled trees. The combination of the two variants has two promising characteristics. First, it solves $\texttt{MaxLA}$ for almost all trees consisting of a few tenths of nodes. Second, we prove that it constitutes a $3/2$-approximation algorithm for $\texttt{MaxLA}$ for trees. Furthermore, we conjecture that $\texttt{bipartite MaxLA}$ solves $\texttt{MaxLA}$ for at least $50\%$ of all free trees.