Product Overview
Longlisted for the National Book Award.Where did the ideas come from that became the cornerstone of American democracy?
Americas founders intended to liberate us not just from one king but from the ghostly tyranny of supernatural religion. Drawing deeply on the study of European philosophy, Matthew Stewart brilliantly tracks the ancient, pagan, and continental ideas from which Americas revolutionaries drew their inspiration. In the writings of Spinoza, Lucretius, and other great philosophers, Stewart recovers the true meanings of Natures God, the pursuit of happiness, and the radical political theory with which the American experiment in self-government began.
