Peripheries and Center: Constitutional Development in the Extended Polities of the British Empire and the United States 1607-1788

“Characteristically incisive and refreshing. . . . It represents the fruits of years of reflection and research into the relationship between Great Britain and her American colonies, and how that relationship affected developments in the early Republic.” ― [London] Times Higher Education Supplement

To Great Britain in the seventeenth century, and then to the fledgling United States, no problem was more urgent than how to divide authority between local powers and the governing central power. In this book the noted colonial historian Jack P. Greene traces the search for solutions.

Jack P. Greene (b. 1931) was an Andrew W. Mellon Professor in Humanities at Johns Hopkins University. His other books include The Quest for Power: The Lower Houses of Assembly in the Southern Royal Colonies, 1689-1776 (Norton).