This important collection of essays concentrates on how specific instances of “radicalism” or “radicals” correlate with the ideologies of radicalism, in particular, the tradition of an omnipresent radical movement in English society throughout the ages—an idea much beloved of the British Marxist school of historians that flourished after World War II. For a thematic volume of contributions that range from the dynastic problems of Elizabeth I to Joseph Hume's ideas on reforming India in the nineteenth century, this book has a remarkable degree of continuity. There are a few reasons for this. First, the editors have drawn together a distinguished group of historians and political philosophers and given them a clear mandate in which to work. Second, the contributors have written to their brief. Unlike so many essay collections, which feel forced—papers written for another purpose hastily reconfigured to meet academic deadlines—these articles are fresh and topical. Burgess lays out the groundwork clearly in his introduction, guiding the reader through the main schools of radical thought and the four problems inherent to discussions of radicalism: historical transmission, radical ideas and social history, religion, and language and anachronism. But more is on offer as well. Two afterwords, one by Conal Condren (who has critiqued the concept of radicalism before the emergence of the word circa 1820), and the other by Colin Davis (whose functional approach has been to deny the existence of a continuous tradition of radicalism), do much to bring this book together. In the end, both Condren and Davis stick to their guns, arguing for their respective positions on radicalism, drawing in many of the preceding essays to bolster their positions. The fact that they disagree, as do many of the contributors, makes for a refreshing approach to the subject.

The volume is organized for the most part chronologically, starting with Stephen Alford's search for radicals in the sixteenth century through a discussion of the Bond of Association. Quickly, however, we arrive at the 1640s, where Luc Borot looks at the “intertext” of Richard Overton's writings, arguing that his borrowing comes from a far greater variety of sources than John Lilburne’s. In the essay that follows, Burgess's reassessment of the historiography of radicalism and the English Revolution builds upon his introduction to offer a clear reappraisal of radicalism in the late 1640s. In his examination of the Putney and Whitehall debates of 1647 and 1648–49, Burgess argues for the removal of the tags “conservative” and “radical” as “the terminology seems incapable of capturing the shifting alliances and ideologies of the period” (71). His argument rests on the idea that “radicalism in the English Revolution is a product of the religious construction of the political sphere” (80). Burgess makes a compelling case for the removal of labels from groups, although it would be fascinating if he extended his analysis into how we can label individual ideas as radical or not.

Richard Greaves's essay on radicalism in the Restoration follows Colin Davis's functional model, making the point that “total opposition to the established order is not a necessary criterion to be a radical” (92). Essays that focus on linguistics include Iain Hampshire-Monk's exploration of the changing language of radicalism in the 1790s and ideas of “plain speaking” utilized by radicals and J. C. D. Clark's “of the origins of radicalism in early nineteenth-century Britain. Unsurprisingly, the 1790s are well represented in this volume. Gregory Claeys turns his focus to Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790) and Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), persuasively arguing that what separates the two pieces is not a changing conception of rights but of manners. Claeys’ careful reading presents Wollstonecraft's radicalism in the context of her declaration that “private morality is the chief source of public virtue” (116). Mark Philp looks at popular radicalism and popular loyalism in the 1790s, while Margot Finn in a brilliantly constructed essay analyzes Henry Hunt's radical agitation over debtors’ imprisonment in the early nineteenth century.

Fred Rosen provides a fascinating essay on Jeremy Bentham's self-identification as a radical in both political and philosophical dimensions, critiquing as he goes along E. P. Thompson's idea of bourgeois ideology in The Making of the English Working Class (New York, 1963). Bentham's later radicalism and his extension of radical ideology to the working class was influenced by his friendship with Francis Place, the noted radical member of the London Corresponding Society. Place was also influential in the career of the radical MP Joseph Hume, who sought to amend the Reform Bill in August 1831 to extend the franchise to the colonies. In the final essay, Miles Taylor examines Hume's amendment and ideas in relation to India in the early nineteenth century, seeing Hume in a new light as a “thinker” involved with “judicial reform, so called ‘native’ education, free trade and, above all, a free newspaper press” (287). Taylor does an admirable job of transforming Hume from the traditional perspective that he was a House of Commons bore and into the role of a devoted, “liberal” activist.

Sadly, in a review of this length it is not possible to do justice to many of the essays, but all offer something new for the reader. Burgess and Festenstein have done the profession a great service in assembling this essay collection. It is one of the most important books on this topic to emerge in the last few decades, and for both academics and students interested in radicalism, this book will become required reading for many years to come. Also sadly, at $120 for the hardback, few will be able to afford it. Cambridge University Press should issue this book in paperback immediately.