Puritans in the New World: A Critical Anthology

Book Overview

Puritans in the New World tells the story of the powerful yet turbulent culture of the English people who embarked on an "errand into the wilderness." It presents the Puritans in their own words, shedding light on the lives both of great dissenters such as Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson and of the orthodox leaders who contended against them. Classics of Puritan expression, like Mary Rowlandson's captivity narrative, Anne Bradstreet's poetry, and William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation appear alongside texts that are less well known but no less important: confessions of religious experience by lay people, the "diabolical" possession of a young woman, and the testimony of Native Americans who accept Christianity. Hall's chapter introductions provide a running history of Puritanism in seventeenth-century New England and alert readers to important scholarship.

Above all, this is a collection of texts that vividly illuminates the experience of being a Puritan in the New World. The book will be welcomed by all those who are interested in early American literature, religion, and history.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691114099
• ISBN13: 9780691114095
• Release Date: April 2004
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 392 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.2" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Puritanism remains with us.

Hall's book is further outstanding scholarship from this Harvard historian. Well written and adds considerably to an ever interesting part of our heritage and our present.

You don't have to love the religion to read the book

David Hall is a terrific scholar, known for his skill as an editor and anthologizer (check out his anthology on the antinomian controversy, for example). Although there are other good anthologies of Puritan writing out there (Miller, Heimert and Delbanco, etc.) any person serious about understanding these people, their worldviews, their spirituality, and their impact on American culture should consider this anthology as an additional resource. At the very least it should not be passed over on the basis of an anti-intellectual review written by someone who has not even bothered to review the book itself.