John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) is perhaps the foremost economic thinker of the twentieth century. On economic theory, he ranks with Adam Smith and Karl Marx; and his impact on how economics was practiced, from the Great Depression to the 1970s, was unmatched. The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money was first published in 1936. But its ideas had been forming for decades ? as a student at Cambridge, Keynes had written to a friend of his love for 'Free Trade and free thought'. Keynes's limpid style, concise prose, and vivid descriptions have helped to keep his ideas alive - as have the novelty and clarity, at times even the ambiguity, of his macroeconomic vision. He was troubled, above all, by high unemployment rates and large disparities in wealth and income. Only by curbing both, he thought, could individualism, 'the most powerful instrument to better the future', be safeguarded. The twenty-first century may yet prove him right. In The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919), Keynes elegantly and acutely exposes the folly of imposing austerity on a defeated and struggling nation.

Few writers have had a more demonstrable impact on the development of the modern world than has Karl Marx (1818-1883). Born in Trier into a middle-class Jewish family in 1818, by the time of his death in London in 1883, Marx claimed a growing international reputation. Of central importance then and later was his book Das Kapital, or, as it is known to English readers, simply Capital. Volume One of Capital was published in Paris in 1867. This was the only volume published during Marx's lifetime and the only to have come directly from his pen. Volume Two, published in 1884, was based on notes Marx left, but written by his friend and collaborator, Friedrich Engels (1820-1895). Readers from the nineteenth century to the present have been captivated by the unmistakable power and urgency of this classic of world literature. Marx's critique of the capitalist system is rife with big themes: his theory of 'surplus value', his discussion of the exploitation of the working class, and his forecast of class conflict on a grand scale. Marx wrote with purpose. As he famously put it, 'Philosophers have previously tried to explain the world, our task is to change it.'

Adam Smith (1723-1790) was one of the brightest stars of the eighteenth-century Scottish Enlightenment. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations was his most important book. First published in London in March 1776, it had been eagerly anticipated by Smith's contemporaries and became an immediate bestseller. That edition sold out quickly and others followed. Today, Smith's Wealth of Nations rightfully claims a place in the Western intellectual canon. It is the first book of modern political economy, and still provides the foundation for the study of that discipline. But it is much more than that. Along with important discussions of economics and political theory, Smith mixed plain common sense with large measures of history, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and much else. Few texts remind us so clearly that the Enlightenment was very much a lived experience, a concern with improving the human condition in practical ways for real people. A masterpiece by any measure, Wealth of Nations remains a classic of world literature to be usefully enjoyed by readers today.

Notes and Introduction by Mark G. Spencer, Brock University, Ontario John Locke (1632-1704) was perhaps the most influential English writer of his time. His Essay concerning Human Understanding (1690) and Two Treatises of Government (1690) weighed heavily on the history of ideas in the eighteenth century, and Locke's works are often ? rightly ? presented as foundations of the Age of Enlightenment. Both the Essay and the Second Treatise (by far the more influential of the Two Treatises) were widely read by Locke's contemporaries and near contemporaries. His eighteenth-century readers included philosophers, historians and political theorists, but also community and political leaders, engaged laypersons, and others eager to participate in the expanding print culture of the era. His epistemological message that the mind at birth was a blank slate, waiting to be filled, complemented his political message that human beings were free and equal and had the right to create and direct the governments under which they lived. Today, Locke continues to be an accessible author. He provides food for thought to university professors and their students, but has no less to offer the general reader who is eager to enjoy the classics of world literature.

A thorough examination of the influence of David Hume's work early American political thought. This book explores the reception of David Hume's political thought in eighteenth-century America. It presents a challenge to standard interpretations that assume Hume's thought had little influence in early America. Eighteenth-century Americans are often supposed to have ignored Hume's philosophical writings and to have rejected entirely Hume's "Tory" History of England. James Madison, if he used Hume's ideas in Federalist No. 10, it is commonly argued, thought best to do so silently -- open allegiance to Hume was a liability. Despite renewed debate about the impact of Hume's political ideas in America, existing scholarship is often narrow and highly speculative. WereHume's works available in eighteenth-century America? If so, which works? Where? When? Who read Hume? To what avail? To answer questions of that sort, this books draws upon a wide assortment of evidence. Early American bookcatalogues, periodical publications, and the writings of lesser-light thinkers are used to describe Hume's impact on the social history of ideas, an essential context for understanding Hume's influence on many of the classic texts of early American political thought. Hume's Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects, was readily available, earlier, and more widely, than scholars have supposed. The History of England was read most frequently ofall, however, and often in distinctive ways. Hume's History, which presented the British constitution as a patch-work product of chance historical developments, informed the origins of the American Revolution and Hume's subsequent reception through the late eighteenth century. The 326 subscribers to the first American edition of Hume's History [published in Philadelphia in 1795/96] are more representative of the History's friendly reception in enlightened America than are its few critics. Thomas Jefferson's latter-day rejection of Hume's political thought foreshadowed Hume's falling reputation in nineteenth-century America. MARK G. SPENCER is Associate Professor of History at Brock University where he holds a Chancellor's Chair for Research Excellence. His books include Hume's Reception in Early America [2002], Utilitarians and Their Critics in America, 1789-1914 [2005], andUlster Presbyterians in the Atlantic World [2006].

Eight Irish-American historians explore the changing transatlantic character of Ulster Presbyterianism in the 18th and 19th centuries. - Mark G. Spencer (Brock U), Peter Gilmore (Carnegie Mellon U), Katherine Brown (Mary Baldwin College) & David A. Wilson (U Toronto) examine the role of Ulster Presbyterians in the United Irish movement on both sides of the Atlantic - Patrick Griffin (Ohio U) compares and contrasts the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 in Pennsylvania with the Defender movement in Ireland - Kerby Miller (U Missouri) analyzes class conflict and the origins of Unionist hegemony in early 19th-century Ulster - Kevin James (Guelph U) explores the social underpinnings and political consequences of the Ulster Revival of 1859 - David W. Miller (Carnegie Mellon U) provides a broad-ranging assessment of evangelical traditions in Scotland, Ulster and the United States

This volume provides a new and nuanced appreciation of David Hume, the historian. Gone for good are the days when one can offhandedly assert, as R. G. Collingwood once did, that Hume "deserted philosophical studies in favour of historical" ones. History and philosophy are commensurate in Hume's thought and works from the beginning to the end. Only by recognizing this can we begin to make sense of Hume's canon as a whole and see clearly his many contributions to fields we now recognize as the distinct disciplines of history, philosophy, political science, economics, literature, religious studies, and much else besides. Casting their individual beams of light on various nooks and crannies of Hume's historical thought and writing, the book's contributors illuminate the whole in a way that would not be possible from the perspective of a single-authored study.

Aside from the editor, the contributors are David Allan, M. A. Box, Timothy M. Costelloe, Roger L. Emerson, Jennifer Herdt, Philip Hicks, Douglas Long, Claudia M. Schmidt, Michael Silverthorne, Jeffrey M. Suderman, Mark R. M. Towsey, and F. L. van Holthoon.

The Encyclopedia of the American Enlightenment is the first reference work on this key subject in early American history. With over 500 original essays on key American Enlightenment figures, it provides a comprehensive account to complement the intense scholarly activity that has centered on the European Enlightenment recently. There are substantial and original essays on the major American Enlightenment figures, including Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, David Rittenhouse, Benjamin Rush, Jonathan Edwards, and many others. The collection is wide-ranging and includes many topical essays and entries on dozens of often-overlooked secondary figures, offering a fresh definition of the Enlightenment in America. It has long been known that Americans made their own contributions to the Enlightenment, most notably by putting Enlightenment ideas to work in defining the American Revolution, the United States Constitution, and the nature of the early American Republic. These volumes show that the American Enlightenment was more far reaching than even that story assumes. This remarkable work shows that the American Enlightenment constitutes the central framework for understanding the development of American history between c. 1740 and c. 1820.