A refreshing addition to the historiographical debate about the
Great Awakening. Lambert (History/Purdue Univ.) broke new ground in
1994 with his study of George Whitefield ("Pedlar in Divinity," not
reviewed), arguing that the great 18th-century evangelist needed to
be understood as a market-savvy self-promoter who shrewdly created
a demand for religious tracts and publications. This volume
examines the broader religious movement in which Whitefield was a
player, paying close attention to some of the less well known
revivalists of the day. Essentially, the author argues that
Whitefield was not alone in his ability to give the masses what
they wanted before they knew they wanted it. The phenomenon known
as the Great Awakening, Lambert asserts, was the "invention" of
pastors who strung together isolated revivals and claimed a massive
intercolonial, even transatlantic, religious renaissance. He
provides many compelling examples of this aggrandizement, including
a detailed chapter on the origins of the most famous revivalist
tract, Jonathan Edwards's Faithful Narrative. A revivalist "script"
emerged, Lambert finds, which encouraged a uniformity of conversion
and conviction experiences from Manchester, Vt., to Manchester,
England. As always, the author pays keen attention to the sweeping
changes in 18th-century consumption, which created a demand for
religious goods. He also analyzes the rhetoric of the
anti-revivalists, who expressed grave concerns about the itinerant
nature of revivals (traveling preachers threatened the religious
status quo and the local ministers' "bottom line") and claimed that
proponents of the awakening were "puffing" attendance records to
fuel public interest. Though the author never actually claims that
revivalists were more motivated by money than faith, his arguments
frequently teeter on the brink of that conclusion, making the book
seem on occasion cynical. Lambert can be criticized for taking his
market metaphors too far, but he makes a skillful and original
analysis of American religion's early engagements with the market
economy. (Kirkus Reviews)
This book is a history of an astounding transatlantic
phenomenon, a popular evangelical revival known in America as the
first Great Awakening (1735-1745). Beginning in the mid-1730s,
supporters and opponents of the revival commented on the
extraordinary nature of what one observer called the "great ado,"
with its extemporaneous outdoor preaching, newspaper publicity, and
rallies of up to 20,000 participants. Frank Lambert, biographer of
Great Awakening leader George Whitefield, offers an overview of
this important episode and proposes a new explanation of its
origins.
The Great Awakening, however dramatic, was nevertheless unnamed
until after its occurrence, and its leaders created no doctrine nor
organizational structure that would result in a historical record.
That lack of documentation has allowed recent scholars to suggest
that the movement was "invented" by nineteenth-century historians.
Some specialists even think that it was wholly constructed by
succeeding generations, who retroactively linked sporadic
happenings to fabricate an alleged historic development.
Challenging these interpretations, Lambert nevertheless
demonstrates that the Great Awakening was invented--not by
historians but by eighteenth-century evangelicals who were skillful
and enthusiastic religious promoters. Reporting a dramatic meeting
in one location in order to encourage gatherings in other places,
these men used commercial strategies and newly popular print media
to build a revival--one that they also believed to be an
"extraordinary work of God." They saw a special meaning in
contemporary events, looking for a transatlantic pattern of revival
and finding a motive for spiritual rebirth in what they viewed as a
moral decline in colonial America and abroad.
By examining the texts that these preachers skillfully put
together, Lambert shows how they told and retold their revival
account to themselves, their followers, and their opponents. His
inquiries depict revivals as cultural productions and yield fresh
understandings of how believers "spread the word" with whatever
technical and social methods seem the most effective.
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