Constant Minds investigates the reception and use of Lipsian ideas in the moral, political, and literary culture of late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century England through examination of the writings and activities of Walter Ralegh, Francis Bacon, Fulke Greville, Ben Jonson, and Joseph Hall.

Adriana McCrea demonstrates how this continental school of thought permeated the political ideas of these English writers, and places her study in the contexts of the literary conventions of the humanist tradition, the political events of the time, and the activities and circles of the authors themselves.

McCrea's study fuses intellectual history with political history and literary analysis, prompting new questions about the nature of English Renaissance humanism and political perception in England during the early modern period.