Liberty of Conscience: Roger Williams in America [Paperback]

Edwin S. Gaustad (Author), Nathan O. Hatch (Foreword)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This well-written, solidly researched biography should be read by all well-informed Americans with a serious interest in the origins of our traditions of religious liberty and the separation of church and state. Gaustad (retired professor of history, University of California at Riverside and the author of several works, including A Religious History of America , HarperCollins, 1966; 1990. rev. ed.) makes 17th-century religious controversies and the political ramifications of these controversies understandable to the nonspecialist reader; his concluding chapter is a tour de force that traces the reputation of Williams from the 17th to the 20th century. Rhode Island readers will benefit from Gaustad's account of the origins of their state and its split from the Puritan Massachusetts of John Cotton and John Winthrop.
- Susan A. Stussy, Barton Cty. Community Coll., Great Bend, Kan.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 229 pages
• Publisher: Judson Press (July 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0817013385
• ISBN-13: 978-0817013387
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #360,765 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful biography of Williams, July 7, 2000

By 

Richard N. Pierce - See all my reviews

This review is from: Liberty of Conscience: Roger Williams in America (Paperback)

Gaustad's Liberty of Conscience is the second biography of Roger Williams I have read this summer. Perhaps because the first, Covey's The Gentle Radical, was so prolix, I loved Gaustad's work. His selection of historical data, his clear sequencing, and his explication of Williams's own writings make this a delight to read. Seventeenth-century Britain and colonial America and all those names one vaguely remembers are vividly described. The prose is clear and attractive. I came away with a new appreciation of Williams. Gaustad sees him as the first to set forth those principles of religious liberty that were picked up after him by Locke, Penn, Jefferson, and others and which we take for granted today. Toleration is a subject of current conversation within the United States. This biography depicts someone who fought for toleration in a time when people were being banished and even executed for not believing what the political powers said they must believe. It really gives a healthy perspective on our times. I recommend it highly.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Founders' Founder, September 11, 2002

By 

Alan E. Johnson (Pittsburgh, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Liberty of Conscience: Roger Williams in America (Paperback)

This beautifully written book brings to light, in an understated but poetic way, the genius and greatness of the man who, as Gaustad says, "was out to do nothing less than alter the institutional structure of the Western world." It is a measure of our time that many people, especially young people educated pursuant to the fashionable bromides of contemporary social science education, have never heard of this first founder of liberty of conscience and disestablishment of religion in America. In our epoch of attempted "faith-based" governmental initiatives, Gaustad's book reminds us, by constant reference to the writings of Roger Williams, of those principles that, after a bitter struggle of more than a century, came to distinguish this nation from the government-controlled religion and thought of the rest of the world. The life of Roger Williams shows that deeply held religious belief necessarily implies an unwavering commitment to the principle of absolute separation of church and state. Williams' life also demonstrates that at least one colonial leader tried, unsuccessfully, to overcome the tendency of the Puritans to treat Native Americans as less than human or as mere subjects for conversion to Christianity. The tragedy of Williams' life consisted solely in the failure of his decades-long effort to resolve the conflict between rapacious, religiously hypocritical English settlers and the Native Americans. The triumph of his life was his original pronouncement, in this country, of the enduring but often threatened principle that government should be restricted to civil, not religious, tasks. More than a century later, Jefferson and Madison built on the foundation that Roger Williams so nobly established in his writings and in the constitutional documents of Rhode Island.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Williams Still Relevant Today!, July 11, 2001

By 

Shannon A. Kimbell Auth (Lakeport, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Liberty of Conscience: Roger Williams in America (Paperback)

Gaustad did an excellent job of portraying not only Williams' beliefs, politic and theology but the state of the world that led to their development and need. Very readable, never boring, practical and insightful to William's America as it is to ours. WE could learn a great deal from Williams, even so mamy years later. Gaustad truly brought him to life.