The essays in this collection investigate two political traditions and their critical interactions. The first series of essays deals with the development of natural rights individualism, some examining its origins in the thought of the seminal political theorist, John Locke, and the influential constitutional theorist, Montesquieu, others the impact of their theories on intellectual leaders during the American Revolution and the Founding era, and still others the culmination of this tradition in the writings of nineteenth-century individualists such as Lysander Spooner. The second series of essays focuses on the Progressive repudiation of natural rights individualism and its far-reaching effect on American politics and public policy.

'The insolvency of our national government and several liberal Democratic states, Detroit's bankruptcy, and the continuing struggles of European welfare states suggest that the Progressive answer, whatever it may be, is not as viable as our dominant intellectual culture has thought … The essays present scholarship from a range of disciplines, including intellectual history, political science, American history, philosophy, and law … such collaborations help to redress the imbalance of views in higher education and our elite culture, which is an element of our worsening cultural insolvency.'

Paul O. Carrese Source: Claremont Review of Books