Reviewed by April Lee Hatfield | Book Review | The William and Mary Quarterly, 62.1

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the WMQ online. About 252 words from this article are provided below; about 671 words remain.

If you are a individual subscriber to the William and Mary Quarterly, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a subscriber to the William and Mary Quarterly, you can:: • subscribe here.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the William and Mary Quarterly (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the William and Mary Quarterly.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

Reviewed by April Lee Hatfield | Book Review | The William and Mary Quarterly, 62.1 | The History Cooperative

Reviews of Books

April Lee Hatfield, Texas A&M University

A Little Parliament: The Virginia General Assembly in the Seventeenth Century. By Warren M. Billings. Richmond: The Library of Virginia, 2004. 306 pages. $30.00 (cloth).
The newest addition to Warren M. Billings's impressive collection of scholarship on seventeenth-century Virginia examines the evolution of England's law and political practices in one of its colonies, a question he has addressed before and that has commanded considerable interest recently. Explaining how Virginia lawmakers and politicians adapted their inherited political and legal tradition to a colonial setting, A Little Parliament emphasizes the institutional and procedural aspects of this question, examining how the functions and responsibilities of the Virginia General Assembly developed over the course of the seventeenth century and how its roles in Virginia compared with those of Parliament and other legal bodies (judicial and legislative) in England.	1
Billings's command of seventeenth-century Virginia sources and his familiarity with individuals, political factions, and laws allows him to consider with confidence how personalities intersected with changes in political policy to affect the workings of the General Assembly, the Virginia governing body composed of the governor, his councillors, and the representative House of Burgesses. Billings's main argument is that despite minimal legal training, Virginia Assemblymen quickly became "sophisticated lawmakers" (xix) who built the General Assembly into a professional lawmaking body. This conclusion, though building on his earlier work, reflects a refreshing willingness to reconsider his previous belief in a more disorganized political scene.	. . .

There are about 671 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.