The Puritans

Posted Friday, November 4, 2022.

PURITANS
1. Edmund S. Morgan on the Puritan era. He is a great writer and a specialist in American Puritanism. Visible Saints: The History of a Puritan Idea, 1963. His book, The Puritan Family: Religion and Domestic Relations in 17th-Century New England, 1942, was his doctoral dissertation.
2. Antonia Fraser’s [biography of] Cromwell, 2001, was a bestseller and deserves to be.
3. The Puritan Hope: A Study in Revival and the Interpretation of Prophecy, Ian Murray, 1971.
4. Keith Thomas’s magisterial opus, Religion and the Decline of Magic, 2012. This is one of the most extraordinary history books ever written. The footnotes will boggle your mind. It is an important topic.
5. It is unfortunate that one of the greatest historians of the Puritans was a Marxist: Christopher Hill. Read any of his books, but don’t expect a real understanding of the theology of Puritanism. Pay close attention to his analysis of their social and economic views. Here, he was a master.
6. Read the Putney debates between Cromwell’s son-in-law, Ireton, and a representative of the Democratic faction, Rainsboro. These have been in print for over 75 years.
7. The main publisher of primary source documents from the era is the Banner of Truth Trust. These books focus on the pietism of Puritanism, not the social views.
8. Wayward Puritans: A Study in the Sociology of Deviance, Kai T. Erikson, 1966.
9. “The New Puritans,” Ann Applebaum, The Atlantic, August 31, 2021
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Interesting post and resources from Charles Burris at Lew Rockwell (Thursday, February 3, 2022) on “What Is a Yankee?” Yankees are meddling, forceful, authoritarian Puritans. Fund them all iver the world–the Karen in the Amazon warehouse, the Kyle sticking the shelves in your nearby grocer, the DMV clerk or the grocery clerk who tells you to pull your mask up over your nose. They’re also the neo-cons who think that bombs are essential negotiation tools. Essays & books:

Brion Mclanaham voices one of his best and most clarifying podcasts on that distinct ethnocultural, ethno-religious ideological mindset that has been the bane of America’s civic society ever since their arrival on these shores in 1630. He points out that they are still very much with us, still pernicious, invasive, intolerant, and meddlesome.

The Puritan Family: Essays on Religion and Domestic Relations in Seventeenth-Century New England — Edmund S. Morgan

Those People, Part 1 — Clyde Wilson

Those People, Part 2 — Clyde Wilson

The Yankee Problem in America — Clyde Wilson

The Puritanical Termites of Progressivism — Charles Burris