In this exciting work of popular history, Michael Barone brings the story of the Glorious Revolution–an unlikely late-seventeenth-century British uprising–to American readers and reveals that, without it, the American Revolution may never have happened. With a strong narrative drive and unforgettable portraits of kings, queens, and soldiers, Barone takes an episode that has fallen into unjustified obscurity and restores it to the prominence it deserves. "Michael Barone's definition of a revolution is more conservative than mine, but it's exactly the irony - of a conservative revolution - that lends point and weight to his absorbing study of an event that changed much more than it set out to change. Without 1688 there would have been no 1776." —Christopher Hitchens “We all know Michael Barone as one of the nation’s most insightful observers of the American political scene. Now, turning his considerable talents to the Glorious Revolution, he has woven a rich, varied, and fascinating tale, a saga not simply of British liberties, but ultimately, one which would have great resonance for America’s Founders as well.” —Jay Winik, author of April 1865: The Month That Saved America “Not content with being the most knowledgeable commentator on the nuts and bolts of American politics, Michael Barone now provides a splendid analysis of the intellectual pedigree of America’s political order. He demonstrates the remarkable extent to which our revolution was a reverberation of another one.” —George F. Will, Pulitzer Prize—winning columnist “Michael Barone is legendary as the author of The Almanac of American Politics, the Bible of the Beltway. With this sparkling new study he shows that he should be well known as an historian also. His compelling narrative reveals how the Glorious Revolution of 1688 shaped America’s own revolution less than a century later. Barone demonstrates that a political journalist supremely sensitive to the tides that govern electoral politics can teach professional historians a great deal.” —Paul A. Rahe, Jay P. Walker Professor of American History at the University of Tulsa "A well-researched, well-written, thought-provoking book." — Wall Street Journal “Loved it. It’s so dramatic and theatrical.” —Jon Stewart, The Daily Show “An important new book . . . Thanks to writers like David McCullough, Richard Brookhiser, David Hackett Fischer, and now Barone, we still have both an interest and a legitimate pride in who we are and where we come from.” — Chicago Sun-Times From the Hardcover edition. MICHAEL BARONE is a senior writer with U.S. News & World Report and a contributor to Fox News Channel. He is the principal coauthor of the biannual Almanac of American Politics and the author of Our Country, The New Americans , and Hard America, Soft America . Chapter 1 The Improbable Revolution The First Revolution: what is generally known as the Glorious Revolution. In recent years Americans have been devouring books on our nation’s Founding Fathers—Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton—some written by academic historians, others by gifted professional writers. As these writers help us understand, the Founders did not spring from a historical vacuum. Before the break with the Crown, they regarded themselves as Englishmen, as inheritors of the system of government and the traditional liberties of England. As they moved daringly into a revolutionary and republican future, they looked back on a heritage that was shaped by many historical events. Not least among them was what most Englishmen referred to as the Glorious Revolution of 1688–89. This term referred to the series of events that resulted in the ouster of King James II and the installation of King William III and Queen Mary II, and in changes in English law, governance, and politics that turned out to be major advances for representative government, guaranteeing liberties, global capitalism, and a foreign policy of opposing hegemonic powers on the European continent and in the world beyond. The First Revolution, as it will be called here, was a reference point, an example, indeed a glowing example, for the American Founders. The Founding Fathers began their rebellion not by rejecting the achievements of the Glorious Revolution, but by arguing that Parliament and King George III were denying them their rights as Englishmen that were gained in that Revolution and the revolutionary settlement—the laws passed in 1689 and the 1690s. It is true that as the Founding Fathers created their own revolution and formed their republic, they did not fully accept the Revolutionary settlement—the set of laws and customs established during and immediately following the Glorious Revolution. The new nation would have no monarchy or titled nobility, no religious tests for public office, and no national established church. But the founders also self-consciously copied some features of the Revo