3 Review(s)

Scholars have long debated the meaning of happiness, yet have tended to define it narrowly, missing its larger context. They have focused on a single intellectual tradition, most commonly the political philosophy of Locke, and on the use of the term within a single text, the Declaration of Independence. Carli Conklin considers happiness across a variety of intellectual traditions, and focuses on its usage in two key legal texts of the Founding Era: Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, as well as the Declaration. In so doing, she makes several contributions to the fields of early American intellectual and legal history.