The Colonial American Origins of Modern Democratic Thought

J. S. Maloy is Associate Professor of Political Science at Oklahoma State University, where he teaches courses in political theory and American constitutional law and writes on a wide range of topics in the history of political thought. He was born and raised in Austin, Texas, and educated at Brown University, the University of Cambridge and Harvard University.

• 1. Introduction: accountability and democratic theory; 2. Radical trust and accountability in the seventeenth century; 3. Fidelity and accountability in Virginia and Bermuda; 4. Politics and ecclesiastics in Plymouth and Massachusetts; 5. Constitutional conflict and political argument at Boston; 6. Democratic constitutionalism in Connecticut and Rhode Island; 7. Conclusion: anglophone radicalism and popular control.

'Jason Maloy's book is a superb exercise in historical retrieval. But his book should be interest far more than specialists in early American political thought; his book offers excitingly different ways of looking at the general issues of political representation and elections that are worth thinking about in the 21st century.' Sanford Levinson, University of Texas Law School and author of Our Undemocratic Constitution