The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop (Library of American Biography) [Paperback]

Edmund S. Morgan (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0321478061 | ISBN-13: 978-0321478061 | Publication Date: October 15, 2006 | Edition: 3rd

Caught between the ideals of God’s Law and the practical needs of the people, John Winthrop walked a line few could tread.

 

In every aspect of our society today we see the workings of the tension between individual freedom and the demands of authority.  Here is the story of the people that brought this idea to our shores: the Puritans.  Edmund Morgan relates the hardships and triumphs of the Puritan movement through this vivid account of its most influential leader, John Winthrop.

 

The titles in the Library of American Biography Series make ideal supplements for American History Survey courses or other courses in American history where figures in history are explored.  Paperback, brief, and inexpensive, each interpretive biography in this series focuses on a figure whose actions and ideas significantly influenced the course of American history and national life. In addition, each biography relates the life of its subject to the broader themes and developments of the times.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Award-winning historian Edmund S. Morgan is Sterling Professor of History Emeritus at Yale, where he taught American history for 30 years. He has written more than 15 books on early American history and is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 210 pages
• Publisher: Longman; 3rd edition (October 15, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321478061
• ISBN-13: 978-0321478061
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 4.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #35,136 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #16 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Regional U.S. > New England

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent use of biography to examine larger issues, December 13, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop (Library of American biography) (Paperback)

One of Edmund Morgan's most enduring works, The Puritan Dilemma, published in 1962, is still a good starting point for understanding the motivations behind Puritan migration to America and the ideological and political difficulties they faced once they arrived. It was Winthrop who declared that the new colony would be as a city on a hill, a new example of community for the rest of the western world. Morgan shows that this statement masks the Puritans' somewhat melancholy desertion of the political revolution brewing back in England, and examines what the search for true community cost in terms of individual freedom as well. The contradictions in Winthrop himself mirror those of the entire Puritan colony and by extension America: what does freedom mean, and what is the proper role of the individual in society? How could a group looking for freedom of worship cast Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams out of their society? Morgan examined the issue of freedom many times, most definitively in American Slavery--American Freedom, but this short biography lays bare fundamental American problems with grace, concision, and a consistent point of view that debunks our culture's simplistic use of the "puritan" label. An intellectual bargain at only 200 pages.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Still excellent, August 22, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop (2nd Edition) (Paperback)

I read this book many years ago for an American Literature class and am now rereading it for an American History class. I enjoyed it the first time and am enjoying it now. The writing is fluid, entertaining; the points made are profound. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about Winthrop and the early Puritan immigrants--a quick, pleasurable read.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Resource to Understanding Early American Puritanism, February 15, 2006

By 

Ryan B. Jankowski (the State of Euphoria) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop (2nd Edition) (Paperback)

This is an excellent overview of Winthrop and his Massachusetts Bay Colony. The author traces how John Winthrop struggled with the dilemma, first internally, as he dealt with the question of whether traveling to the New World represented a selfish form of "separatism", the desire to separate himself from an impure England, or whether, as he eventually determined, it offered a unique opportunity to set an example for all men by establishing a shining "City upon a Hill", a purer Christian community in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In this regard, it seems to have been of vital importance to Winthrop and his fellow Puritan colonists that they had the imprimatur of the King and that though they were physically distancing themselves from the Church of England, they were not actually renouncing it.

The issues Winthrop faced are no different than what the Church still faces today (though perhaps seemingly less practical). That is, what is the normative and non-arbitrary basis for jurisprudence- Gods' law or autonomy? Gary North's books are particularly helpful in answering this, hopefully, rhetorical question. The sad reality is that most ecclesiastic officers and the Church as a whole are altogether unprepared to deal with the task presented to Winthrop because of their pessimillenialial views despite Christ's admonition that the (defensive!) Gates of Hades shall not prevail against His kingdom.

I highly recommend this book.