A Reforming People: Puritanism and the Transformation of Public Life in New England

In this revelatory account of the people who founded the New England colonies, historian David D. Hall compares the reforms they enacted with those attempted in England during the period of the English Revolution. Bringing with them a deep fear of arbitrary, unlimited authority, these settlers based their churches on the participation of laypeople and insisted on consent as a premise of all civil governance. Puritans also transformed civil and criminal law and the workings of courts with the intention of establishing equity. In this political and social history of the five New England colonies, Hall provides a masterful re-evaluation of the earliest moments of New England's history, revealing the colonists to be the most effective and daring reformers of their day.

Author: David D. Hall
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Published: 08/01/2012
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.93lbs
Size: 9.29h x 6.22w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9780807873113

About the Author
Hall, David D.: - David D. Hall is Bartlett Research Professor of New England Church History at Harvard Divinity School. He is author or editor of numerous books on American religious and cultural history, including Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment.