Less than a year to go until the first presidential election in which Tea Party activists, who speak of the ideals of the American Revolution, will play a large role—but what were those ideals? Basic Books has just published Thomas Kidd’s Patrick Henry: First Among Patriots, a biography of the man known as “the voice of the American revolution.” Here are edited excerpts from an interview with Kidd, a history professor at Baylor University.

Patrick Henry was homeschooled? Henry was born in 1736, when there was almost no educational infrastructure in Virginia, except in the major towns. His father largely schooled him at home. This mainly meant reading and history and classics: He had deep exposure to the Christian tradition, to Greek and Roman antiquity, to the heroes of the ancient past and the Reformation. This stuck with him through his career.
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