• Preface


• Acknowledgments


• 1. William Penn in England and America: An Approach to Political Thought in Context


• 2. Emergence: 1668-1671


• 3. Debut: The Peoples Ancient and Just Liberties


• 4. Plot: Parliament, Popery, and Liberty, 1678-1681


• 5. Founding: Theory Meets Practice?


• 6. Revolution: Penn, 1685-88


• 7. Return: The 1690s


• 8. Legacy?


• Bibliography


• Index

Andrew R. Murphy is Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University. His previous books include Prodigal Nation: Moral Decline and Divine Punishment from New England to 9/11 and Conscience and Community: Revisiting Toleration and Religious Dissent in Early Modern England and America.

Liberty, Conscience, and Toleration focuses on the major political episodes that attracted William Penn's sustained attention as a political thinker and actor: the controversy over the Second Conventicle Act, the Popish Plot and Exclusion Crisis, the founding and settlement of Pennsylvania, and the contentious reign of James II. Through a careful examination of writings published in the midst of the religious and political conflicts of Restoration andRevolutionary England, Murphy contextualizes the development of Penn's thought in England and America, illuminating the mutual interconnections between Penn's political thought and his colonizing venture in America.