Description
Book SynopsisProposes a fresh view of the political philosophy that lay behind the founding of the United States. This book looks at the Whig or opposition tradition as it developed in England. It argues that there were, in fact, three opposition traditions: Protestant, Grotian, and Lockean.
Trade Review"This exemplary work of historical reconstruction dramatically transforms our understanding of the genealogy of early American political thought. No one who deals with the eighteenth-century Anglo-American political tradition will be able to avoid the unsettling challenge of Zuckert's original and painstakingly documented reinterpretation, for this is one of those rare scholarly achievements, at once capacious and meticulous, that forces all of us back to the drawing boards."--Thomas L. Pangle, William and Mary Quarterly "This is a work of careful scholarship and vast erudition... By illustrating how Lockean and republican ideas came to be blended, Zuckert forcefully recounts the origins of the American republic."--Richard Vernier, The Journal of American History
Table of ContentsPrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroductionPrologue3Pt. 1Protestants27Ch. 1Aristotelian Royalism and Reformation Absolutism: Divine Right Theory29Ch. 2Aristotelian Constitutionalism and Reformation Contractarianism: From Ancient Constitution to Original Contract49Ch. 3Contract and Christian Liberty: John Milton77Pt. 2Whigs95Ch. 4Whig Contractarianisms and Rights97Ch. 5The Master of Whig Political Philosophy119Ch. 6A Neo-Harringtonian Moment? Whig Political Science and the Old Republicanism150Pt. 3Natural Rights and the New Republicanism185Ch. 7Locke and the Reformation of Natural Law: Questions Concerning the Law of Nature187Ch. 8Locke and the Reformation of Natural Law: Two Treatises of Government216Ch. 9Locke and the Reformation of Natural Law: Of Property247Ch. 10Locke and the Transformation of Whig Political Philosophy289Notes321Bibliography377Index391
