Pufendorf, Grotius, and Locke

In The Social Contract in America: From the Revolution to the Present Order (2007), Mark Hulliung attempts to compare the influence of political theorists Samuel Pufendorf, Hugo Grotius, and John Locke on the republic’s founders, a narrower project than the title of his book suggests. Unfortunately, Hulliung’s aim is off target because American patriots appealed to both radical and conservative ideas and because both reformers and reactionaries invoked his three principal theorists at various times.