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Defoe, Dissent, and Early Whig Ideology
Clark, Katherine P.
Clark, Katherine P.
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Abstract
The nature of Whig ideology at its formation in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries continues to attract the attention of historians of political thought. This article contends that
prevalent understandings of the taxonomy of the subject nevertheless still often remain secular, and do not
fully attend to the religious constituencies of the authors involved. One key author was Daniel Defoe, who
was credited with several anonymous pamphlets published after the Revolution of 1688. The effect of these
attributions is to reinforce a homogenized picture of early Whig political ideology that fails to identify
differences between authors who used similar terms such as ‘ contract ’, ‘ resistance ’, and ‘ natural law’. This
article de-attributes certain of these pamphlets, outlines the consequences for the history of political thought of
that de-attribution, re-establishes Defoe’s own political identity, and proposes that such a taxonomy should
give more attention to religious difference.
Description
This is the published version, also available here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X09990045.
Date
2009-01-01
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Cambridge University Press
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ClarkK_HJ_52(3)595.pdf
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Clark, Katherine P. "Defoe, Dissent, and Early Whig Ideology." Historical Journal (2009) 52, 3. 595-614. http://www.dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X09990045.