by Bernard Bailyn



Editorial Reviews

The leaders of the American Revolution, writes the distinguished historian
Bernard Bailyn, were radicals. But their concern was not to correct
inequalities of class or income, not to remake the social order, but to
"purify a corrupt constitution and fight off the apparent growth of
prerogative power." They wished, in other words, to mend a broken system
and improve upon it. In doing so they drew on many traditions of political
and social thought, ranging from English conservative philosophers to
exponents of the continental Enlightenment, from backward-looking
interpretations of ancient Roman civilization to forward-looking views of
a new American people. Bailyn carefully examines these sources of
sometimes conflicting ideas and considers how the framers of the
Constitution resolved them in their inventive doctrine of federalism.

Product Details

Paperback: 416 pages
Publisher: Belknap Press; Enlarged edition (March 1, 1992)
ISBN: 0674443020