Revolution and Constitutionalism in Britain and the U.S.

In this book David A.J. Richards offers an investigative comparison of two central figures in late 18th century constitutionalism, Edmund Burke and James Madison, at a time when two great constitutional experiments were in play, the Constitution of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the U.S. Constitution of 1787.

David A. J. Richards is Edwin D. Webb Professor of Law at the New York University School of Law and is the author of numerous articles and over 20 books, including A Theory of Reasons for Action (Oxford: Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1971); Sex, Drugs, Death and the Law: An Essay on Human Rights and Decriminalization (Totowa: Rowman & Littlefield, 1982); Toleration and the Constitution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Foundations of American Constitutionalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Conscience and the Constitution: History, Theory, and Law of the Reconstruction Amendments (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993); Women, Gays, and the Constitution: The Grounds for Feminism and Gay Rights in Culture and Law (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998); Italian American: The Racializing of an Ethnic Identity (New York: New York University Press, 1999); Resisting Injustice and the Feminist Ethics of Care in the Age of Obama: "Suddenly, All the Truth Was Coming Out" (New York: Routledge, 2013); Free Speech and the Politics of Identity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); Disarming Manhood: Roots of Ethical Resistance (Athens: Swallow Press, 2003); The Deepening Darkness: Patriarchy, Resistance, and Democracy's Future (with Carol Gilligan) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Darkness Now Visible: Patriarchy's Resurgence and Feminist Resistance (with Carol Gilligan) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018); Patriarchal Religion, Sexuality, and Gender: A Critique of New Natural Law (with Nicholas Bamforth) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); Fundamentalism in American Religion and Law: Obama's Challenge to Patriarchy Threat to Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Why Love Leads to Justice: Love across the Boundaries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016); The Rise of Gay Rights and the Fall of the British Empire: Liberal Resistance and the Bloomsbury Group (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); Identity and the Case for Gay Rights: Race, Gender, Religion as Analogies (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1999); Boys' Secrets and Men's Loves: A Memoir (Bloomington, IN: Xlibris, 2019); and the recent Holding a Mirror Up to Nature: Shame, Guilt, and Violence in Shakespeare (with James Gilligan) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022).

1. Burke's Liberal Constitutionalism 2. The Liberal Constitutionalism of James Madison 3. Burke on Violent Revolution and Its Legacy for Madisonian Constitutionalism 4. Burke on the Political Psychology of Violence in the British Empire: Ireland and India 5. A Constitution for the Ages? Constitutionalism in the U.S and Britain 6. The Common Challenge to the Political Liberalism of British and American Constitutionalism in World War II: Institutional Change and New Challenges, Domestic and International 7. Patriarchal Religion in U.S. and U.K. Constitutional Law: Originalism as "Political Religion" (Burke) Unmasked 8. Concluding Reflections on Burke on Liberalism and the Political Psychology of Anti-Liberal Violence