America's Philosopher: John Locke in American Intellectual Life

A commonly held position in post-WWII American intellectual life was that John Locke's Second Treatise of Government underpinned not only the Declaration of Independence, but also the American Political Tradition more generally. This might be wrong. Claire Rydell Arcenas's often surprising new history of American engagement with Locke from the early eighteenth century to the late twentieth suggests that successive generations of American readers found different aspects of Locke thought to be significant.

Claire Rydell Arcenas is associate professor of history at the University of Montana.