Primary texts:
- John Locke, Second Treatise on Government (1689), in Two Treatises on Government Writings (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought), ed. Peter Laslett (for purchase)
- The Bill of Rights, 1688
- David Hume, political essays from Selected Essays, ed. Stephen Copley and Andrew Edgar (Oxford World’s Classics, 2008): ‘On the First Principles of Government’, ‘Of Commerce’, Of the Original Contract’, ‘Idea of A Perfect Commonwealth’ (for purchase)
- Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), selected edition, ed. Kathryn Sutherland (Oxford World’s Classics), (for purchase) Books 1, 3, and 5
- Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776) in Rights of Man, Common Sense, and Other Political Writings, ed. Mark Philp (Oxford World’s Classics) (for purchase)
- Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence (1776), in Richard Beeman, The Penguin Guide to the United States Constitution: A Fully Annotated Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution and Amendments, and Selections from the Federalist Papers—(for purchase)
- The United States Constitution (1787), in Beeman, Penguin Guide to the US Constitution
- James Madison, The Federalist Papers (1787—88), numbers 10, 51 and 78, in Beeman, Penguin Guide to the US Constitution (for purchase)
- Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), ed. L. G. Mitchell (Oxford World’s Classics) (for purchase)
- Thomas Paine, Rights of Man (1791)
- Hannah More, Cheap Repository Tracts (1792-1800; selected tracts) (links to texts in Fronter)
Textbooks (for purchase):
- H. T. Dickinson, Liberty and Property: Political Ideology in Eighteenth-Century Britain (London: Methuen 1977)
- Note that this book is out of print, but second-hand copies are available from online bookshops at a very reasonable price. It also exists as a compendium sold by the university bookshop Akademika (a reproduction in A4-format). The title of the compendium is: ENG 2517, The British Constitution.
- H. T. Dickinson, ed., Britain and the American Revolution (London: Longman, 1998), Introduction (pp. 1—20) and chapters 2 (pp. 44—63) and 3 (pp. 64—96)
- Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967), 2nd edn, enlarged (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992)