The origins of Anglo-American Radicalism - review

                         As the title of the book implies, the essays in the book seeks to find out the origins of Anglo-American Radicalism up to the end of the eighteenth century. With this aim in mind Margaret and James Jacob intended to edit nineteen essays by famous historians. Most of the essays in the book were written in early 1980s asking somewhat the similar questions such as what was radical at that time, what it meant to be radical and what kinds of radicalism were there in England and America before 1800? Each of the essays in the book tries to find answers to these questions from the side the historian took. As one can easily imagine the answers to these questions can be great in number and in variety. It is just what happened in the book, there are nineteen papers and nineteen different points of views, ideas and beliefs.  The edited book begins with the English tradition of the radicalism and its quest to find out the origins. The first two essay of the English tradition is under the subtitle of  “keynote essays” which are written by two significant historians Christopher Hill and J.G.A. Pocock.  The following six essays deal with the formation of the Radical Tradition and the English Revolution. One of the essays in this section covers both English and American side of the Radicalism written by Lois Schwoerer and one of them is a commentary essay by David Underdown. The rest of the six essays are about political aspects of the English Revolution and the formation of Radical thought at that time except from Phyllis Mack’s Women as Prophets during the English Civil War, which differs from other essays in its subject and implications. The English tradition ends with two essays written by Nicholas Rogers and Robert W. Malcolmson, which are brought together under the subtitle of secular associations and Radical culture in the eighteenth century England. Robert Malcolmson’s essay is about the workers and workers’ combination in eighteenth century England and Nicolas Rogers’s paper covers the subject of the urban opposition to Whig oligarchy between the years 1720 and 1760.

                 The second half of the book is the part for the papers covering the American Tradition in analyzing radicalism and its origins and dimensions in terms of history.  The keynote essay of this part is consisted of Alfred F.Young’s paper that is under the title of “ English Plebeian Culture and Eighteenth Century American Radicalism”.  In this paper Young tries to draw parallels between English Plebian Culture and American Radicalism of the time by finding roots and implications of English radicalism and its effect on American Radicalism of the eighteenth century. In addition he uses four tables in order to show how the English Plebian culture was  conveyed to American radicalism. The following four essays are written for the purpose to search through the religion and radical culture in America. The aims of these three essays are to find the signs and roots of radicalism in America and in religious and cultural backgrounds of radicalism.  Like in the part of English Tradition, the American part of the book has also a commentary essay suited in this section written by James         Henretta. The purpose of the next two papers is to share the information about American Radicalism in the local communities such as Philadelphia in the eighteenth century. The paper written by Gary Nash analyzes the artisans, their attitudes and relations to politics in eighteenth century         Philadelphia and Steven Rosswurm gives information about the time period between 1776 and 1780 in Philadelphia in his paper called “ As a Lyen out of his Den: Philadelphia’s Popular movement, 1776-80”. The whole nineteen of the papers in this book ends with two critical essays in terms of history and radicalism written by Richard Twomey and Joyce Appleby who is also one of the writers of the introduction of the paperback edition with Margaret and James Jacob. Joyce Appleby’s paper suggests interesting points about the radical Double-Entendre in the right to self-government and the intellectual origins of the American Radicalism. However in this last part of the book and maybe in all the book one of the most interesting and challenging article is written by Richard Twomey in which he deals with Jacobins and Jeffersonians and the Anglo-American ideology between the years 1790 and 1810 clearly a stimulating period of history in terms of research and analyze.

               Finally, The Origins of Anglo-American Radicalism edited by two scholars is a book of Modern History and its subject area dealing with the intellectual, political, social and religious aspects of Radicalism with in the regions of England and America. As a secondary source the book provides a reliable knowledge about the subject that it covers as result of the quality of the historians who had contributed to the book with their nineteen papers, which were submitted and discussed in a conference in 1980. The nineteen essays of this successful historians covers a wide range and a great number of primary evidence to support their papers and ideas so this makes the book valuable in terms of taking as a source while searching the roots of radicalism concerning England and America and understanding the some events and concepts of the early seventeenth and late eighteenth century.  As a secondary source, the book is also valuable because of its coverage of both England and America since it gives the advantage of compare and contrast and draw parallels between to countries related to the aspects of radicalism as a political, cultural and social movement.