Radical Duke

Radical Duke explores the origins of the Age of Revolution through the life of Charles Lennox, the Third Duke of Richmond (1735-1806), a largely overlooked British political reformer. Through a combination of archival discoveries, political writings, and computational analysis, Allen examines the Duke’s opposition to the Crown and his unlikely alliance with revolutionary thinker Thomas Paine, revealing their dual role in shaping debates over popular sovereignty, individual liberty, and political reform. In this book, Allen also reveals for the first time the authorship of the influential Letters of Junius and discovers a new work co-written by Paine. Radical Duke (Liverwright) challenges conventional understandings of the American Revolution, arguing that many of the ideas that defined this era first took shape among radical British thinkers.