PDF A Reforming People: Puritanism and the Transformation of Public Life in New England by David D. Hall in History

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Politics and Government in Puritan New EnglandBy Frank BellizziThis is a different sort of book about the Puritans. Instead of focusing on theology and religion; it looks at politics and government. It's also different in another regard: instead of asserting that Puritan government was authoritarian and anti-democratic; historian David D. Hall argues that so much of the Puritan political experiment actually ran in the opposite direction. From the very beginning of A Reforming People; it's clear that Hall wants to stick up for the misunderstood and much-maligned Puritans. "The argument that runs through this book;" he writes; "is plain enough: the people who founded the New England colonies in the early seventeenth century brought into being churches; civil governments; and a code of laws that collectively marked them as the most advanced reformers of the Anglo-colonial world" (xi).Hall notes that during the 1620s and 30s; the search for a proper balance between liberty and order was a huge question in both England and New England. Along these lines; the big advances emerged in New England; not old England (4). Looking back on the Puritans of the seventeenth century; he explains; observers and historians have taken one of two opposing views. According to some; the Puritan impulse was essentially top-down and authoritarian. They suggest that the Salem witch trials should come as no surprise. According to others; the Puritan outlook was essentially democratic and anti-authoritarian. They point to the development of democratic ideology in nineteenth-century America. Hall argues that both of these common; popular views of New England Puritans are seriously flawed. No; they weren't proto-liberals. But neither were they unfeeling; authoritarian despots.10 of 12 people found the following review helpful. ExcellentBy J. AronsonThis very excellent book is not for the casual reader.It seems one cannot begin to understand 17th C. Anglo-American history until you have been both Catholic and a Calvinist and been to law school and thought the first year curriculum in law school was the most interesting thing ever.In this very excellent work David Hall approaches the first 20 years or so of the Bay Colony from the religious and cultural point of view.Through out the book; Hall presents his conclusions from his research into how the town and colony government developed and functioned roughly between 1630-50. The words that came to my mind to the describe the process was "iterative" or perhaps "dialectic" The first issue was who or what was sovereign. Following Hall; it seems the king was never mentioned; that the presbyterian system of bishops was rejected out of hand; and the result was that first Christ and then His godly people speaking both personally and through their representatives were sovereign. Hall suggests that the populism implicit in all this was tempered by Winthrop who; in Hall's excellent observation; was just the right man to ensure that the governor and his assistants retained just enough magisterial power to prevent the colony from coming apart. Hall's Winthrop reminded me strongly of Henry Ireton and Sir Thomas Fairfax.Hall advances the thesis (which I strongly endorse) that the Puritans who founded the Bay Colony are properly considered as the most successful and historically important of the many factions and sects that emerged from the Puritan Revolution that had been simmering in England since the short reign of Edward VI and that exploded into civil war when Charles I raised the royal standard in Nottingham on August 22; 1642.Politics and religion were completely enmeshed everywhere in Europe during the 17th C. So; first and foremost; the culture of Bay Colony's Puritans was that of yeoman and minor gentry English Calvinist Independents (Congregationalists) from the Heart of the Eastern Association; the sort that attracted Bishop Laud's particular and unfavorable attention after 1626. Some were separatists; some were not but whether or not to separate from the Church of England was certainly on all of their minds at the time. I think it was not until the reign of William of Orange that the C of E was first grudgingly tolerated in Boston.In plain English; Hall argues that while the Levellers wanted to establish a constitutional democratic republic; Winthrop and his settlers succeeded in doing just that. Certainly; every Leveller or Grandee who supported the Agreements of the People; the Heads of Proposals and the Westminster Confession could have happily found a home in one New England town or another.Hall takes care to remind us that the written record; which is extensive in New England; must be read carefully as it is often one sided and self-serving. Hall argues and demonstrates that the "magisterial" tendencies of proto-whig Grandee like figures such as Winthrop; Endicott; Dudley and Vane were; in fact; successfully resisted by what can be easily described as the "republican" or "Leveller" tendencies of the great majority of the settlers.I look forward to re-reading T H Breen's "The Character of a Good Ruler" (cited by Hall) and Louise A. Breen's "Transgressing the Bounds" in light of this book.14 of 16 people found the following review helpful. Our Kinsmen; the PuritansBy William StottDavid Hall's New England Puritan colony is both new and familiar. New because it isn't like Perry Miller's; where blear-eyed theologians agonize over a certain Peter Ramus; nor like Nathaniel Hawthorne's and Arthur Miller's; where men in black snoop out sex and witchcraft. Rather; it is a community of other-directed souls conscious of and concerned about the least among them--and also many wayward pigs--and laboring to build a place that's just and humane. What Hall recreates for us is the American small town that for so long was the center of our lives and aspirations.