Description
Book SynopsisProtestant Empire is the first comprehensive history of the dramatic clash of peoples and beliefs that emerged in the diverse religious world in the British Atlantic, including England, Scotland, Ireland, parts of North and South America, the Caribbean, and Africa.
Trade Review"A remarkably learned survey of religion and empire in the British Atlantic world." *
Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography *
"In an ambitious, compelling discussion of Protestantism in the British Atlantic, Carla Gardina Pestana asks whether religion trumped politics and militarism in the shaping of colonies, the growth of empires, and the development of cultural identities. She makes a strong case that religion became the driving force of British expansion in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries." *
William and Mary Quarterly *
"
Protestant Empire is the most balanced account we now possess of religion and the shaping of the British Atlantic world from the Reformation to the American Revolution. Carla Gardina Pestana lucidly shows how religion joined the various parts of that world into a bounded whole yet introduced deep divisions whose consequences remain with us today. Her successful synthesis offers an authoritative introduction to these developments for students and scholars alike." * David Armitage, Harvard University *
"Britain was the world's mightiest Protestant empire, but it was also an empire of striking religious diversity and fragmentation. In this important, wide-ranging book, Carla Pestana examines the religious consequences of Britain's early modern expansion for people throughout the Atlantic basin. The result is a major contribution to the history of the British Atlantic world." * Eliga H. Gould, University of New Hampshire *
Table of ContentsIntroduction
1. Religion before English Expansion
2. Reformation and the Politicization of Religious Expansion
3. Exporting the Religious Tensions of the Three Kingdoms
4. Restoration Settlement and the Growth of Diversity
5. Battling over Religious Identity in the Late Seventeenth Century
6. Religious Encounters and the Making of a British Atlantic
7. Revivalism and the Growth of Evangelical Christianity
8. Revolutionary Divisions, Continuing Bonds
Conclusion: The British Atlantic World in Perspective
Suggestions for Further Reading
Notes
Index
Acknowledgments
