A Rational Millennium: Puritan Utopias of Seventeenth-Century England and America

By James Holstun

Taking a new approach to the history of utopia, this volume combines the political study of literary form with the literary study of political rhetoric. After arguing that early modern utopists, both literary and non-literary, attempt to reshape displaced populations, Holstun concentrates on two utopian projects of the mid-17th century: the political platforms and Algonquin "praying towns" of John Eliot in Massachusetts and the republican political theory of James Harrington in Protectorate England. Moving between these projects and modern analyses of rationalization, he shows that Puritan utopia shares the modern Western longing for universal social discipline and that it envisions this discipline as the rational means to the Millennium.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195041410
• ISBN13: 9780195041415
• Release Date: March 1987
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 381 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.6" x 1.3" x 5.7"