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.
"Hall's book is persuasive, thanks to his detailed research...[his] prose helps to elucidate complex issues."
Providence Journal Arts Blog
"A remarkably sophisticated and lucid work that ultimately shifts the established paradigm and opens up numerous avenues for further research."
Library Journal
"A lucid and tightly argued account of the institutions, laws, and lives forged by the earliest colonists in New England.... [A] challenge to the scholarly status quo on the relationships that existed among puritanism, science, and politics in early modern North America."
