The Puritans: A Transatlantic History

"Hall’s story is about Puritanism, from roughly the beginning of efforts to reform the Church of England in the 1570s down to the Glorious Revolution. He does both sides of the Atlantic, which is, really well done. Too often studies of Puritanism isolate the European side from the North American side. He’s spent his career writing about early modern Protestantism, and he’s a great historian. I put this in there because he’s part of a recent recovery of Puritanism, at least by historians in the United States, that links the developments in North America to political developments in 17th-century England, Scotland and beyond. Oftentimes the history of Puritanism in the US looks at, say, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and the New England colonies in isolation from the British Isles. Perry Miller, who was another great historian, at Harvard, almost single handedly rescued Puritanism from the kinds of snipes that H.L. Mencken took at Puritans—Mencken famously defined Puritanism as the haunting fear that someone somewhere may be happy. That was a common perception of Puritanism, until maybe 1940 or so. And then, Miller burst onto the stage at Harvard, recovers Puritanism with a boatload of graduate students under him. They go out and they wind up weaving the Puritan narrative into the understanding of America, which is in the midst of the Cold War. And the way that they tell that narrative helps America keep going with the Cold War. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . It’s actually a very interesting story. An historian recently, called Abram van Engen has a book out called A City on a Hill: A History of American Exceptionalism , that refers to this creation of the Puritan narrative, and weaving it into the national narrative post-World War Two. But what Hall does is look at it from a completely different perspective, not from a Cold War perspective, but from the 17th century, looking at what was happening in North America and how that was related to the politics and religion of 17th-century England and Scotland. And for that reason, it’s a great read, but it’s also a great background on Puritanism. And if you want to understand Puritanism and Franklin’s relationship to Puritanism, that’s an important book to consult. A couple of examples. It’s a bit of a stretch to argue that Franklin is indebted to English Puritanism in some way, since he himself disavowed it. And it really left him cold, even though he held on to pieces about God, about the importance of doing good because there’d be a reckoning in the world to come. He held on to those sorts of things. But Puritanism was a very bookish culture and, and Franklin going into publishing and into print as much as he did was part of that Puritan inheritance. Even his interest in science could be part of it. There’s an old sociology of science scholar, Robert Merton, who has elaborated the so-called Puritan thesis about the origins of modern science being rooted in the culture of Puritanism in England. And I try to work that into understanding Franklin. “Puritanism was a very bookish culture and, and Franklin going into publishing and into print as much as he did was part of that puritan inheritance. Even his interest in Science could be part of it” Even his ideas about civic organizations and social order in Philadelphia, organizing libraries, hospitals, police, fire departments—you could argue that Franklin learned a lot of this from the civic culture of Puritans in Boston. Maybe he just intuited it by growing up in it, but those are the sorts of connections that I see, even though when it comes down to beliefs, they’re not there. One other example I would use. One of his most published works is the autobiography. Puritans were famous for keeping journals and diaries of their lives, especially their relationship to God. And so I’ve speculated in the book, about whether Franklin was writing a secular version of a Puritan journal or diary, in writing his autobiography, the way does."