“All Those Truly Acquainted with the History of Those Times”: John Adams and the Opposition Politics of Revolutionary England, ca. 1640–41

In the aftermath of the Stamp Act crisis, John Adams encountered a volume of English revolutionary pamphlets from the early 1640s. By examining that volume within the context of Adams's evolving political and historical thought, this article illustrates how the puritan experience of tyranny helped to justify opposition to British imperial authority.