The Politics of Liberty in England and Revolutionary America,
Lee Ward, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. x, 459.
This book is a valuable contribution to scholarship on seventeenth and
eighteenth century political thought. It will be of particular interest to
those who study theories of natural rights, the relationship between
religion and politics, constitutionalism and the American founding. The
most commendable quality of Ward's book is its even-handedness.
Methodologically, Ward combines a detailed reading of important texts with
continuous attention to context, engaging the literature distinctive to
both approaches. Interpretively, he treats every author he discusses with
generosity, revealing what is most significant and compelling about each
of them. Politically, the story he tells corrects narratives that
overemphasize the role of either liberalism or republicanism in
Anglo-American thought. He follows both traditions as they oppose divine
right theory together as rival elements of “radical Whig”
thinking, collaborate in the defence of natural liberty, and combine to
form the basis of the American regime.