This is a compilation of letters, diary entries, and accounts from various participants and witnesses, to the principle events, on the battlefield anyway, of the American Revolutionary War. Editor Wright interposes commentary linking the various quotes, and is generally judicious and even-handed. The quotes are mostly a paragraph or two, and occasionally just a sentence, and they are sorted by year. The edition of this book I got was from the Folio Society, a British book club that does premium editions of books, and they include color illustrations that often don't accompany other editions. Given that, this is a worthwhile addition to any library on the American Revolution, though serious historians would find it a bit superficial, I think.

In this measured and fluently written essay, the author reviews the origin of the linked doctrines of religous liberty and church-state separation in American life by focusing on the contribution of three architects of these doctrines; Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Roger Williams. Miller is very successful in presenting these men without the anachronistic accretions of 19th and early 20th century historians and stresses the novel and indeed revolutionary character of religous liberty and church-state separation. He then follows with a nice analysis of how these doctrines shaped subsequent religous life in America. The doctrines of religous liberty and church-state separation appear as a benign influence on American religous practice, enabling the religious experimentation and enthusiasm that characterized much of the 19th century. Miller also provides a pithy and insightful characterization of the development of American Protestantism and a good history of 20th century legal battles over church-state separation. Miller's book, with its moderate tone and judicious examination of original sources, serves as a nice corrective to ideologues of the left and right on the subject of church-state separation. In Miller's analysis, the Founding Fathers did not frame the USA as a Christian (or even religous) polity nor did they expect the rigid prohibitions demanded by some of the more extreme contemporary proponents of church-state separation. Miller repeatedly calls for restraint and wisdom in addressing these difficult issues and his book exemplifies these qualities.

Elder Larsen's discussion on the House of Israel is the most insightful chapter of this superb book.

I was more familiar with German philosophy, as an intellectual reaction to the French revolution, than with the French and Italian thinkers who are also discussed in the radio lectures which are included in this book. I also have the book, KARL MARX by Isaiah Berlin, and noticed some of the same themes, though this book is mainly concerned with a half century prior to the writings of Karl Marx. I try to see the humor in history, so when Isaiah Berlin says that Helvetius's principal work, published in 1758, "was found to be so atheistical, so heretical, that it was condemned both by Church and by State, and was burnt by the public hangman," (p. 11) I'm not surprised that this might be "the first clear formulation of the principle of utilitarianism." (p. 13).

Rousseau is the philosopher that Berlin blames most frequently for stating opposition to those who are overly refined. This includes "All those nineteenth century thinkers who are violently anti-intellectual, and in a sense anti-cultural, indeed . . . including Nietzsche himself, are the natural descendants of Rousseau." (p. 41). The Germans were not particularly well off, politically or materially at the time, so some tried to advance themselves by studying Kant. "Therefore, Kant says, the most sacred object in the universe, the only thing which is entirely good, is the good will, that is to say the free, moral, spiritual self within the body." (p. 57). Fichte's biggest contribution to 20th century political thought in Germany has been on leadership as a solution for a crisis, and Berlin considers the hero: "The favored image is that of Luther: there he stands, he cannot move, because he serves his inner ideal." (p. 65) But Fichte went in a philosophical direction. "Fichte gradually adopts the idea that the individual himself is nothing, that man is nothing without society, that man is nothing without the group, that the human being hardly exists at all." (p. 67). The first three pages of notes are mainly citations. The notes on Fichte cover seven pages and include additional phrases from Fichte's work not mentioned in Berlin's lectures but noted on the manuscript. This provides the opportunity to read bits like, "the natural institution of the State ends this independence provisionally and melts the separate parts into one whole, until finally morality recreates the whole species into one." (p. 166).

The notes on Hegel provide a citation for `slaughter-bench.' Hegel gets credit for a new way of looking at the history of everything which is so inspired by greatness that "To see a vast human upheaval and then to condemn it because it is cruel or because it is unjust to the innocent is for Hegel profoundly foolish and contemptible." (p. 92). Also, "Hegel's most original achievement was to invent the very idea of the history of thought." (p. 99). From there, it figures that Saint-Simon would expect the French to produce rationally a society. "For him, history is a story of living men trying to develop their faculties as richly and many-sidedly as possible." (p. 112).

On the other hand, I also have Isaiah Berlin's book, RUSSIAN THINKERS, and Joseph de Maistre, the last lecture topic for this book, was a source for Tolstoy. "Maistre is fascinated by the spectacle of war." (p. 139). "Tolstoy read Maistre because Maistre lived in Petersburg during the period in which he was interested, and he echoes his description of what a real battle is like, describing the experience of people present at the battle rather than giving the orderly, tidied-up account constructed later by eye-witnesses or historians." (p. 140). After that, the phrase, "says Maistre in a mocking manner," (p. 141) applied to the ideas in the preceding lectures, establishes that "No metaphysical magic eye will detect abstract entities called rights, not derived from either human or divine authority." (pp. 143-4). I think the last lecture is far easier to understand than the others.

Historically and traditionally, "law" was something that was considered to be something that lawyers and judges "discovered," rather than something a group of legislators made up and voted on. The law was something that private parties used to settle disputes among themselves, not something that the state, or some groups in society, used to force their will upon others.

_Freedom and the Law_ explores this distinction, between the old idea of law and what people today call law, which is really legislation. Leoni persuasively argues for a return to the imperfect but vastly superior legal system of the Romans or the English common law as a means of restoring the individual liberty that the state has been destroying in modern times.

It is a challenging book, and perhaps best suited for those with a strong background in history, law, and/or economics. I first attempted to read it when I was younger, and stalled after the first chapter or two. Coming back to it with more education and understanding, I've found a lot to appreciate.

Incidentally, this volume actually contains two books: _Freedom and the Law_ and _The Law and Politics_. The latter is a relatively short collection of lectures from the 1960's, but will be of particular interest to anyone who's studied public choice economics, as Leoni examines the then-new ideas of Duncan Black, James Buchanan, and Gordon Tullock.

Libertarians rejoice. Although this book is out of print, find it in a library and give it to your local doubter. It easily explains the libertarian philosophy in under 125 pages, and will convince even the most hardened liberal or conservative with its logic.

A good little book that asks you a lot of detailed questions, which makes you dig into your Bible for answers. Worked good for our group.

Finally, a healthy dose of reality in the spiritual wasteland.A courageous book for thinking people who have questions.Lots of people will find offense,and lots of people will find enlightenment in reading this book.Nice to discover that you are not the only lone wolf out there.

Basically, the main premise is that any judgment is historical, which has precedence in experience as a logical necessity. This is not simply historical determinism (the philodophical doctrine that history determines events, akin to historical materialism, which is further elaborated by notions of dialectical processes thought to be a consequence of those processes, as in a long chain of events so conceived in a serial succession), rather, it is a moral theory applied to the writing of history in that for any moral judgment to exist, it presupposes history.

Benedetto Croce is an excellent author, philosopher, and historian, whose main audience resides in aesthetics. What Croce presents in this book is a rational look at the art of writing history and what that art entails by way of making judgments. Many philosophers during his time (1890-1930) were discovering somewhat unrealized depths of their contemporary philosophy, which were often presented in a synthetic and awkward style of approach. Historiography is the main subject of this book. But it has many ethical insights. History is said to be the story of liberty, or the story of intellectual freedom. Unlike Hegel and Marx, whose deterministic views have instilled an awareness of social influences since the mid 1800's, as bearing on the whole gamut of man's social existence, Croce gives a more sympathetic sense of moral responsibility to the writing of history, which invites rigor and participation in writing history. Croce is known for arguing against Italian fascism, which flourished during his time. So, the book shows a great deal of thought that the title may not suggest.