The Journal of John Winthrop, 1630-1649


Book Description

This abridged edition of Winthrop's journal, which incorporates about 40 percent of the governor's text, with his spelling and punctuation modernized, includes a lively Introduction and complete annotation. It also includes Winthrop's famous lay sermon, "A Model of Christian Charity", written in 1630. As in the fuller journal, this abridged edition contains the drama of Winthrop's life - his defeat at the hands of the freemen for governor, the banishment and flight of Roger Williams to Rhode Island, the Pequot War that exterminated his Indian opponents, and the Antinomian controversy. Here is the earliest American document on the perpetual contest between the forces of good and evil in the wilderness - Winthrop's recounting of how God's Chosen People escaped from captivity into the promised land. While he recorded all the sexual scandal - rape, fornication, adultery, sodomy, and buggery - it was only to show that even in Godly New England the Devil was continually at work, and man must be forever militant.







The Winthrop Woman


Book Description

Colonial America holds friendship, hardship, and love for a bold woman in this classic historical romance from the bestselling author of Green Darkness. In 1631 Elizabeth Winthrop, newly widowed with an infant daughter, set sail for the New World. Against a background of rigidity and conformity she dared to befriend Anne Hutchinson at the moment of her banishment from the Massachusetts Bay Colony; dared to challenge a determined army captain bent on the massacre of her friends the Siwanoy Indians; and, above all, dared to love a man as her heart and her whole being commanded. And so, as a response to this almost unmatched courage and vitality, Governor John Winthrop came to refer to this woman in the historical records of the time as his “unregenerate niece.” Anya Seton’s riveting historical novel portrays the fortitude, humiliation, and ultimate triumph of the Winthrop woman, who believed in a concept of happiness transcending that of her own day. “The Winthrop Woman is that rare literary accomplishment—living history. Really good fictionalized history [like this] often gives closer reality to a period than do factual records.”—Chicago Tribune “A rich and panoramic narrative full of gusto, sentimentality and compassion. It is bound to give much enjoyment and a good many thrills.”—Times Literary Supplement (UK) “Abundant and juicy entertainment.”—New York Times




Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society


Book Description

For the statement above quoted, also for full bibliographical information regarding this publication, and for the contents of the volumes [1st ser.] v. 1- 7th series, v. 5, cf. Griffin, Bibl. of Amer. hist. society. 2d edition, 1907, p. 346-360.




The American Jeremiad


Book Description

When Sacvan Bercovitch’s The American Jeremiad first appeared in 1978, it was hailed as a landmark study of dissent and cultural formation in America, from the Puritans’ writings through the major literary works of the antebellum era. For this long-awaited anniversary edition, Bercovitch has written a deeply thoughtful and challenging new preface that reflects on his classic study of the role of the political sermon, or jeremiad, in America from a contemporary perspective, while assessing developments in the field of American studies and the culture at large.




John Winthrop


Book Description

John Winthrop (1588-1649) was the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and is generally considered the principal architect of early New England society. In placing his life in the context of the times, Bremer discusses Winthrop's family life and the challenges of life faced by men, women, and children in the seventeenth century.




The Puritan Dilemma


Book Description