The Journal of John Winthrop, 1630-1649: Abridged Edition (John Harvard Library) [Abridged] [Paperback]

John Winthrop (Author), James Savage (Editor), Richard Dunn (Editor), Laetitia Yaendle (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0674484274 | ISBN-13: 978-0674484276 | Publication Date: January 1, 1997 | Edition: Abridged

This abridged edition of Winthrop's journal, which incorporates about 40 per cent of the governor's text, with his spelling and punctuation modernized, includes an introduction and complete annotation. It also includes Winthrop's famous lay sermon, "A Model of Christian Charity", written in 1630. As in the fuller journal, this abridged edition contains the drama of Winthrop's life - his defeat at the hands of the freemen for governor, the banishment and flight of Roger Williams to Rhode Island, the Pequot War that exterminated his Indian opponents, and the Antinomian controversy. Here is the earliest American document on the perpetual contest between the forces of good and evil in the wilderness - Winthrop's recounting of how God's Chosen People escaped from captivity into the promised land. While he recorded all the sexual scandal - rape, fornication, adultery, sodomy and buggery - it was only to show that even in Godly New England the Devil was continually at work, and man must be forever militant.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Until the Revolution with its stellar collection of 'Founding Fathers' [John] Winthrop was the only public figure who left his mark on the way his society developed in his own time and for long after. He preserved many letters and papers to document his achievement--he was not bashful about it--and the most important by far was his journal...The new edition [of the journal] will stand as a model of editorial scholarship...[and] is worth reading simply for the sense it conveys of what it took just to stay alive in seventeenth-century Massachusetts...[Winthrop and the Massachusetts Bay colonists] carried out a revolution, rendered bloodless only be the three thousand miles of ocean that separated them from the government they would otherwise have had to overthrow in order to do what they did. In Massachusetts they created what amounted to a republic, substituting annually elected rulers for an hereditary monarchy and independent self-starting churches for the whole hierarchical structure of the Church of England...John Winthrop surely was the wisest, if not the best, public man in early Massachusetts. He guided a whole society in a truly revolutionary reform...With the exception of Jefferson, the men whom Americans recognize as great seam to have pursued and accomplished radical ends by conservative means. Winthrop was the first.
--Edmund S. Morgan (New York Review of Books )

[W]e should greet the release of a major early American text with enthusiasm. Richard S. Dunn and Laetitia Yeandle have published a splendid new edition of John Winthrop's 'Journal,' an account of the founding of New England written between 1630 and 1649. Such works are expressions of a shared national heritage...This edition, from Harvard University Press, is as definitive as projects of this sort are ever likely to be.
--Timothy H. Breen (New York Times Book Review )

The single most valuable document of the settlement years, an inner account of the first Puritan generation by its great leader, and a vivid testimony of faith, struggle, and achievement, John Winthrop's journal is now published in a new, scholarly edition, with the text based on a fresh transcription from the surviving manuscripts. It is a splendid edition, the product of many years of collaboration between an expert paleographer and one of the nation's leading historians.
--Bernard Bailyn

Review

The single most valuable document of the settlement years, an inner account of the first Puritan generation by its great leader, and a vivid testimony of faith, struggle, and achievement, John Winthrop's journal is now published in a new, scholarly edition, with the text based on a fresh transcription from the surviving manuscripts. It is a splendid edition, the product of many years of collaboration between an expert paleographer and one of the nation's leading historians. (Bernard Bailyn ) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; Abridged edition (January 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674484274
• ISBN-13: 978-0674484276
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #622,439 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An outstanding edition of an essential document, August 2, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Journal of John Winthrop, 1630-1649 (John Harvard Library) (Hardcover)

Richard Dunn's long-awaited scholarly edition of John Winthrop's journal was well worth the wait. He presents a text as close to the original as it is now possible to come, with clear editorial method, solid supporting notes and a helpful introduction. The only legitimate complaint is that the index could be more comprehensive. This is, and will doubtless long remain, the only entirely recommendable edition of the Winthrop journal, one of the great early American sources.

Please note: THIS REVIEW refers to the full, UNabridged hardcover edition, not the paperback student abridgement: the hardcover is the only version truly useful for scholarly purposes. The abridgement is useful for college classes, and is well-done, but any true student of colonial New England must acquire the full version. (The abridgment does, oddly, have an index that is sometimes superior, however.)

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great collection, save for the word abridged, July 3, 2000

By 

Robert James (Culver City, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Journal of John Winthrop, 1630-1649: Abridged Edition (John Harvard Library) (Hardcover)

A classic American text, long out of print; if it weren't for the curse word "abridged," deserving of a perfect 5. The Puritans' first twenty-plus years are nowhere better served than in this rational, calm man who spent the better part of his life trying to steer a course between fanaticism and worldly involvement. Anybody who wants to understand how mainstream American culture began needs to acquaint themselves with this seminal work -- if you can handle the omissions.