Description
The son of a Sephardic North African peddler, John "Jew" King did not have the background commonly associated with an English gentleman. A political radical who married into Irish aristocracy, King found himself close to some of Georgian Englands historically notable figures, such as Mary "Perdita" Robinson, Thomas Paine, William Godwin, and leaders of the London Corresponding Society and the Irish independence movement. His love of aristocratic display jostled with his fierce anti-aristocratic republicanism and was further complicated by his well-known criminal enterprises, libertinism, and unethical relationships with women.
Rogue Intellectual examines the plentiful contradictions of John King to tell the story of the first Anglo-Jewish public intellectual who wrote on topics not exclusively Jewish but from a Jewish point of view. Kings radical writings synthesized ideas from European enlightenment as well as political and cultural revolutions in America, France, Ireland, and London. Scriveners engaging biography traces the impact of Kings writing, even as he was forced into prison and exile, only to return as the epitome of someone who defies labels.