The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution by Benjamin Balin

The colonists were drawing from a very specific set of principles to help them interpret the ministry's actions in the worst possible light. After reviewing the contemporary political literature, bernard balin identified five basic foundations for the american argument against parliament. He argues that while references to the ancient world are uniformly present, they are also uniformly superficial and act more as rhetorical window dressing than anything else. Fourth was a dose of puritan theology, which infused the movement with a providential sense of destiny,. That America truly had a special role to play in god's grand design.