A Reforming People

“David Hall shapes mounds of evidence into a depiction of New England unlike any we have ever seen. His Puritanism is neither authoritarian nor democratic but something of its own. Hall makes Puritanism intelligible to the 21st century.” –Richard Lyman Bushman, author of The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities

“In this elegant and richly nuanced book, David Hall rescues the New England Puritans from the dark myths of repression. By recovering their probing ideas and eloquent debates, Hall reveals our original revolutionaries in search of equity, justice, and community.” –Alan Taylor, author of The Civil War of 1812

“A Reforming People powerfully transforms our understanding of the role of Puritanism in the re-making of political culture and institutions in seventeenth-century New England. A model of elegance and erudition, David Hall’s thought-provoking book re-opens the testing question of the roots of modern politics in the Anglo-colonial world. It tells a compelling story that has immense resonance for our understanding of the past–but also the present.” –Alexandra Walsham, author of Charitable Hatred: Tolerance and Intolerance in England 1500-1700

“In A Reforming People, David Hall reminds us of the political accomplishments of New England’s founders, their radical remaking of the nature of public life, through their commitment to self-government and their ethic of equity and mutual obligation. With an authority rooted in his unmatched mastery of the sources, Hall provides an elegant and heartfelt testament to the continuing relevance of the Puritans.” –Mark Peterson, author of The City-State of Boston, 1630-1865

“Thanks to Nathaniel Hawthorne and Arthur Miller, Puritan New England is popularly identified with authoritarian theocracy. In this book, a brilliant historian of early New England takes us beyond the stereotype, and reveals how the first Puritan settlers enacted their own ‘English Revolution’ in public life. Hall depicts a society that (despite its failings) prized and institutionalised accountability, participation and equity. Never before have we had such a compelling account of the New Englanders’ civic achievement.” –Professor John Coffey, co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to Puritanism