Customer Reviews

A Perfect Babel of Confusion: Dutch Religion and English Culture in the Middle Colonies (Religion in America)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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This book explores the collision of English and Dutch culture in New York, formally New Netherland, after the colony's fall to the English in 1664. Balmer uses the fortunes of the Dutch Reformed Church as the benchmark for assessing the condition of Dutch culture as a whole. I am giving four stars because I would have liked a little more background on pre-1664 Dutch culture than Balmer provides. Nonetheless, anyone desiring to acquire a well-rounded understanding of Colonial North American history should read this book.

This book is a must read. It's well-written, deeply researched, short and eye-opening. Balmer shows how Dutch Reformed religion faced pressure from within and without that led to assimilation to English culture, which meant a turn to revivalist evangelicalism or the Church of England. How this developed, from the 1660s to the 1780s, is what Balmer tells in this book. It deserves a place on the shelf of everyone interested in religion in America and who is concerned about retaining a confessional tradition. One may find Darryl Hart's The Lost Soul a good way to follow A Perfect Babel.