America's founders intended to liberate us not just from one king but
from the ghostly tyranny of supernatural religion. Drawing deeply on
the study of European philosophy, Matthew Stewart brilliantly tracks
the ancient, pagan, and continental ideas from which America's
revolutionaries drew their inspiration. In the writings of Spinoza,
Lucretius, and other great philosophers, Stewart recovers the true
meanings of "Nature's God," "the pursuit of
happiness," and the radical political theory with which the
American experiment in self-government began.
