When Danielle Allen unearthed a parchment of the Declaration of Independence buried away in Sussex, England, little did she know that she had discovered a story of historical magnitude that would alter our understanding of British and American history. Revealing that the Age of Revolution began earlier than we thought—not with the Boston patriots nor with the Parisian Jacobins, but in Britain itself—Allen demonstrates in Radical Duke that the rights of man, the theory of revolution, and calls for popular sovereignty all emerged from the radical energies of London before they spread across the Atlantic and the Channel.
Excellent ... Her meticulous and stylish study has the potential to significantly rewrite the history of the American Revolution’s intellectual origins ... Eye-catching ... The book’s specific claims may be debated, but few can dispute its broader achievement. It speaks to the central paradox of our national origins: A revolution that repudiated allegiance to the British Constitution was nevertheless vitally inspired by that very constitutional inheritance.
It advances a singularly bold case for the English origins of the American Revolution ... Reading Allen’s pages, one thinks again and again about a single question: How did the Duke get away with it?
