aThe book constitutes a good contribution to our professional
knowledge, and it is a must readinga
--Law and Politics Book Review
"Anyone who has not read A Distant Heritage cannot know the
history of freedom of speech. This splendid book, based on
excellent research, fills a void on the subject of seditious
utterance and is a valuable corrective, as well as a substantial
addition to, all previous works touching that subject."
--Leonard W. Levy
"A remarkably clear, concise history . . . Eldridge has provided
impressive documentation of an often misunderstood, and vitally
important, aspect of American History."
--"William and Mary Quarterly"
"Larry Eldrige's superb scholarship greatly expands our
knowledge of how free speech took root in the American colonies.
This exceptional book offers both engaging reading and new insights
into the development of a fundamental right. "
--Jeffery A. Smith, University of Iowa, author of "Printers and
Press Freedom"
"Larry Eldridge has crafted a major reinterpretation of the
expansion of political speech in the American colonies. What is
especially impressive is Eldridge's ability to find support for his
thesis in both the growing stability of colonial society and the
powerful upheavals that convulsed it. This is an original,
provocative, and penetrating contribution to the literature on
freedom of speech, in the colonial or any other era."
--Kermit L. Hall
Dean, Henry Kendall College of Arts & Sciences and Professor of
History and Law,
The University of Tulsa
"With "A Distant Heritage," Larry Eldridge joins a handful of
scholars probing a most important aspect of our free speech
heritage. . . Eldridge providesvital pieces to the puzzle of how
American earned the right to speak their minds. With meticulous
attention to detail, Eldridge traces the seventeenth century
development of free speech in colonial America, a process that
opened the way for citizens to criticize their government and that
established the foundation for both revolution and growth in
freedom of speech for generations to come."
--Margaret A. Blanchard
Author of "Revolutionary Sparks: Freedom of Expression in Modern
America"
Historians often rely on a handful of unusual cases to
illustrate the absence of free speech in the colonies--such as that
of Richard Barnes, who had his arms broken and a hole bored through
his tongue for seditious words against the governor of Virginia. In
this definitive and accessible work, Larry Eldridge convincingly
debunks this view by revealing surprising evidence of free speech
in early America.
Using the court records of every American colony that existed
before 1700 and an analysis of over 1,200 seditious speech cases
sifted from those records, A Distant Heritage shows how colonists
experienced a dramatic expansion during the seventeenth century of
their freedom to criticize government and its officials. Exploring
important changes in the roles of juries and appeals, the nature of
prosecution and punishment, and the pattern of growing leniency,
Eldridge also shows us why this expansion occurred when it did. He
concludes that the ironic combination of tumult and destabilization
on the one hand, and steady growth and development on the other,
made colonists more willing to criticize authority openly and
officials less able to prevent it. That, in turn, established a
foundation forthe more celebrated flowering of colonial dissent
against English authority in the eighteenth century.
Steeped in primary sources and richly narrated, this is an
invaluable addition to the library of anyone interested in legal
history, colonial America, or the birth of free speech in the
United States.
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