Synopses & Reviews
With in-depth analysis of political philosophy and careful attention to historical context, this study locates the philosophical origins of the Anglo-American political and constitutional tradition in the philosophical, theological, and political controversies in seventeenth-century England. By examining the quarrel between the proponents of the doctrine of natural liberty and the champions of divine right theory, this study identifies the source of modern liberal, republican and conservative ideas about natural rights and government in the seminal works of the Exclusion Whigs Locke, Sidney, and Tyrrell and their philosophical forbears Hobbes, Grotius, Spinoza, and Pufendorf. This study illuminates how these first Whigs and their diverse eighteenth-century intellectual heirs such as Bolingbroke, Montesquieu, Hume, Blackstone, Otis, Jefferson, Burke, and Paine contributed to the formation of Anglo-American political and constitutional theory in the crucial period from the Glorious Revolution through to the American Revolution and the creation of a distinctly American understanding of rights and government in the first state constitutions.
Synopsis
This study examines the philosophical origins of the Anglo-American political and constitutional tradition in seventeenth century England and traces the historical development of these ideas from the Glorious Revolution in England in 1688 through to the American Revolution. It illuminates the source of modern liberal, republican, and conservative ideas about rights and government by exploring the philosophical debate between British and Americans that lay at the root of the American Revolution. Whereas most other books on this subject tend to focus exclusively on political theory or historical events, this study combines in-depth philosophical analysis and historical context in a way that will be of interest to political theorists, historians, and students of American and British studies alike.
Synopsis
Examines the philosophical origins of the Anglo-American political and constitutional tradition in seventeenth-century England.
About the Author
Dr Lee Ward is Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science at Kenyon College. He has published articles in early modern and ancient political thought and has received several academic honors including Bradley Teaching Fellowship (Kenyon College), Fordham University Dissertation Fellowship, Ontario Graduate Scholarship, Brown and McNiece Scholarships (University of Toronto).
Table of Contents
Introduction: reexamining the roots of Anglo-American political thought; Part I. The Divine Right Challenge to Natural Liberty: 1. The attack on the catholic natural law; 2. Calvinism and parliamentary resistance theory; 3. The problem of Grotius and Hobbes; Part II. The Whig Politics of Liberty in England: 4. James Tyrrell: the voice of moderate Whiggism; 5. The Pufendorfian movement: moderate Whig sovereignty theory; 6. Algernon Sidney and the old Republicanisms; 7. A new Republican England; 8. Natural rights in Locke's two treatises; 9. Lockean liberal constitutionalism; 10. The glorious revolution and the catonic response; Part III. The Whig Legacy in America: 12. British constitutionalism and the challenge of empire; 13. Thomas Jefferson and the radical theory of empire; 14. Tom Paine and popular sovereignty; 15. Revolutionary constitutionalism: laboratories of radical Whiggism; Conclusions; Notes; Bibliography.