Isaac Kramnick is Richard J. Schwartz Professor of Government at Cornell University, where he also served as Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and faculty-elected member of the Board of Trustees. He is the author or editor of many books, including studies of the American founding fathers, Thomas Paine, Edmund Burke, and the twentieth-century Englishman Harold Laski.
Examining the acrimonious political debte during the administration
of Walpole from the perspective of its social context, [Kramnick]
focuses directly upon the political culture of Augustan Britain. As
the title implies, the volume is chiefly concerned with analyzing
the thought and behavior of Bolingbroke and his supporters,
especially Swift, Pope, Gay, and Lyttleton. But it devotes almost
equal space to an explication of the ideas of both Bolingbroke's
opponents... and ambivalent Commonwealthmen... who shared many of
Bolingbroke's impulses but whose thought veered off in genuinely
radical directions. The result is the most comprehensive and
persuasive general study thus far published of early
eighteenth-century British political thought.
*William and Mary Quarterly*
A perceptive and learned contribution to the understanding of
English eighteenth-century thought and of the role in it of
enigmatic Viscount Bolingbroke. No one concerned with the political
theories of Augustan England can afford to ignore Kramnick's
book.
*Political Science Quarterly*
An illuminating analysis of Bolingbroke's political writings [and]
a contribution of the first importance to eighteenth-century
studies.
*American Historical Review*
An excellent book—erudite, penetrating, and extremely
well-written.
*American Political Science Review*
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