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.