The years from 1690 to 1765 in America have usually been considered
a waiting period before the Revolution. Mr. Bushman, in his
penetrating study of colonial Connecticut, takes another view. He
shows how, during these years, economic ambition and religious
ferment profoundly altered the structure of Puritan society,
enlarging the bounds of liberty and inspiring resistance to
established authority.
This is an investigation of the strains that accompanied the
growth of liberty in an authoritarian society. Mr. Bushman traces
the deterioration of Puritan social institutions and the
consequences for human character. He does this by focusing on
day-to-day life in Connecticut--on the farms, in the churches, and
in the town meetings. Controversies within the towns over property,
money, and church discipline shook the "land of steady habits," and
the mounting frustration of common needs compelled those in
authority, in contradiction to Puritan assumptions, to become more
responsive to popular demands.
In the Puritan setting these tensions were inevitably given a
moral significance. Integrating social and economic
interpretations, Mr. Bushman explains the Great Awakening of the
1740's as an outgrowth of the stresses placed on the Puritan
character. Men, plagued with guilt for pursuing their economic
ambitions and resisting their rulers, became highly susceptible to
revival preaching.
The Awakening gave men a new vision of the good society. The
party of the converted, the "New Lights," which also absorbed
people with economic discontents, put unprecedented demands on
civil and ecclesiastical authorities. The resulting dissension
moved Connecticut, almost unawares, toward republicanattitudes and
practices. Disturbed by the turmoil, many observers were, by 1765,
groping toward a new theory of social order that would reconcile
traditional values with their eighteenth-century experiences.
Vividly written, full of illustrative detail, the manuscript of
this book has been called by Oscar Handlin one of the most
important works of American history in recent years.
General
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