The New England Mind: From Colony to Province / Edition 1

by Perry Miller

Overview

The New England Mind: From Colony to Province is one of Perry Miller’s masterworks, exploring the intellectual history of the Puritans through a deep investigation of the thought of the Puritan divines. In this book, as well as its predecessor The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century, Miller asserts a single intellectual history for America that could be traced to the Puritan belief system.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674613010
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	04/15/1983
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	513
Product dimensions:	(w) x (h) x 1.10(d)

Table of Contents

PART 1: RELIGION AND LEARNING

1. The Augustinian Strain of Piety

2. The Practice of Piety

3. The Intellectual Character

4. The Intellectual Heritage

PART 2: COSMOLOGY

5. The Instrument of Reason

6. Knowledge

7. The Uses of Reason

8. Nature

PART 3: ANTHROPOLOGY

9. The Nature of Man

10. The Means of Conversion

11. Rhetoric

12. The Plain Style

PART 4: SOCIOLOGY

13. The Covenant of Grace

14. The Social Covenant

15. The Church Covenant

16. God's Controversy with New England

Appendix A. The Literature of Ramus' Logic in Europe

Appendix B. The Federal School of Theology

Notes

Index

What People are Saying About This

This classic work towers over the great mass of subsequent scholarship, and remains after forty years our single best work on American Puritanism... For many years to come every serious student of American Puritanism will still have to begin by reading The New England Mind.

H. Richard Niebuhr

A magnificent book, the most illuminating and convincing interpretation of Puritanism that I know and a model example of intellectual historiography. Miller seems to possess a rare combination of gifts and acquired intellectual virtues--disciplined faithfulness to sources, philosophical insight and outlook, creative imagination.

Henry Nash Smith

The New England Mind is an authoritative description of Puritanism, the most subtle and most fully coherent intellectual system which has ever functioned as the official code of an American regional society...The book is the best single illustration of what is meant by "the history of ideas" as a method of dealing with American materials.

James Hoopes

This classic work towers over the great mass of subsequent scholarship, and remains after forty years our single best work on American Puritanism... For many years to come every serious student of American Puritanism will still have to begin by reading The New England Mind.

Editorial Reviews

The depth and thoroughness of Miller’s research are matched only by the clarity and wit of his presentation. Few scholars would have had the patience for such an investigation; even fewer could have made their results delightful and absorbing reading.

New York Times Book Review

One of the most exciting histories of ideas so far produced in America.

New Yorker

It is a fascinating tale. As Miller tells it, it involves the most exciting episodes of a century of Massachusetts history. The debates about the Half-Way Covenant, the witchcraft madness, disputes about currency and inoculation—all these are adroitly related to the upsetting of the old New England way… There is also a penetrating discussion of how new scientific attitudes affected New England thinking.

The Nation

Here is the second volume of Perry Miller’s monumental study of the New England mind. In massive detail and with a brilliant combination of scholarship and insight, it presents in new perspective the historical process whereby Puritan became Yankee—as part of that larger process whereby the Reformation became the Enlightenment.

Christian Science Monitor

A highly significant study. Anyone interested in American intellectual development will ignore it at his peril.

Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science

A highly significant study. Anyone interested in American intellectual development will ignore it at his peril.-- "Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science"

Here is the second volume of Perry Miller's monumental study of the New England mind. In massive detail and with a brilliant combination of scholarship and insight, it presents in new perspective the historical process whereby Puritan became Yankee--as part of that larger process whereby the Reformation became the Enlightenment.-- "Christian Science Monitor"

It is a fascinating tale. As Miller tells it, it involves the most exciting episodes of a century of Massachusetts history. The debates about the Half-Way Covenant, the witchcraft madness, disputes about currency and inoculation--all these are adroitly related to the upsetting of the old New England way... There is also a penetrating discussion of how new scientific attitudes affected New England thinking.-- "The Nation"

One of the most exciting histories of ideas so far produced in America.-- "New Yorker"

The depth and thoroughness of Miller's research are matched only by the clarity and wit of his presentation. Few scholars would have had the patience for such an investigation; even fewer could have made their results delightful and absorbing reading.-- "New York Times Book Review"

From the Publisher

One of the most exciting histories of ideas so far produced in America.

New Yorker

It is a fascinating tale. As Miller tells it, it involves the most exciting episodes of a century of Massachusetts history. The debates about the Half-Way Covenant, the witchcraft madness, disputes about currency and inoculation— all these are adroitly related to the upsetting of the old New England way …There is also a penetrating discussion of how new scientific attitudes affected New England thinking.

Nation

A fascinating and indispensable book.

Saturday Review