"This book examines the ecclesiological and political networks that John Leland (1754-1833) and other Baptist leaders-among them, Jonathan Going, Luther Rice, Isaac Backus, and Samuel Stilman-created to attempt political disestablishment in Massachusetts during Leland's lifetime. The author contends that historiography that focuses narrowly on Leland tends to distort the very important role he played in the development of religious freedom in the revolutionary and Early Republic period"--