Description
Book SynopsisThis sweeping history of popular religion in eighteenth-century New England examines the experiences of ordinary people living through extraordinary times. Drawing on an unprecedented quantity of letters, diaries, and testimonies, Douglas Winiarski recovers the pervasive and vigorous lay piety of the early eighteenth century.
Trade ReviewThis finely researched project is a gold mine for students of New England church history. . . . One of the best compendia of New England social history to appear in many years. . . . Students of the region will be building on its findings for decades to come."" - Douglas Sweeney, Jonathan Edwards Center at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
""An absolute must-read for students, scholars, pastors, and laypeople who care about the legacy of the Great Awakening."" -
The Gospel Coalition""Essential reading for students of early American 'evangelicalism.'"" - John Turner,
Patheos""By parsing the distinctive vocabularies and rich tropes that ordinary New Englanders devised to describe their tumult within, [Winiarski] lends freshness and immediacy to the familiar narrative of the Awakening."" -Christine Heyrman, in
Reviews in American History""[Winiarski] weaves together biographies of believers seeking spiritual refreshment and by turns finding in New England's established religion a font of joy or an empty, arid, and spiritless desert. Essential."" -
Choice""Admirably models how the methods and gaze of lived religion can expand and humanize well established narratives."" -
Reading Religion""[T]he most compelling history of the Awakening in New England we have. . . . Nowhere else in studies of religious practice in early America is social behavior so thoroughly mapped. And nowhere else have vernacular descriptions of religious experience been so acutely analyzed."" - David D. Hall, in
Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture""Winiarski brings new life to eighteenth-century religion. Perhaps as significantly, he sets a high bar for the use of compelling narrative and imaginative prose in the writing of early American history . . . [T]hrough his expert presentation of lived experience, he has at last made the stories of the awakened as compelling as those of the awakeners."" - Peter Manseau, in
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
