A nation must think before it acts.
Jonathan C.D. Clark is Hall Distinguished Professor of British History, University of Kansas. His books include English Society, 1660-1832: Religion, Ideology and Politics During the Ancien Regime (Cambridge, 2000); The Language of Liberty, 1660-1832: Political Discourse and Social Dynamics in the Anglo-American World (Cambridge, 1994); and Revolution and Rebellion: State and Society in England in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Cambridge, 1986).