Description
Book SynopsisIn Who Should Rule at Home? Joyce D. Goodfriend argues that the high-ranking gentlemen who figure so prominently in most accounts of New York City's evolution from 1664 to 1776 were far from invincible and that the degree of cultural power they held has been...
Trade ReviewBesides using standard sources, the author effectively made use of various religious accounts. These include Moravian journals to illustrate aspects of women's history. Outstanding.
* Choice *
Goodfriend's overarching thesis is elegant yet subtle.... Careful social analysis provides historians with fresh incentives to connect the historiographical and narrative dots.
* William and Mary Quarterly *
Elegantly written and exhaustively researched.... Goodfriend effectively undercuts older, simplistic views of New Yorkers as grasping merchants or a 'factious people.'.... Historians of British New York will appreciate [Who Should Rule at Home?]'s deep research; its attention to Christianity, race, and ethnicity; and its discovery of the subtle forms of resistance to authority.
* The Journal of American History *
In her well-researched study, Goodfriend situates herself in the historiography of early America as well as of the American Reovlution by uncovering what, other than political ideology, motivated New Yorkers to confront authority and try to rule themselves.
* American Historical Review *
Goodfriend shows that in some ways individual endeavours had greater impacts than more spectacular events.
* The English Historical Review *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Pan-ethnic Elite and the Problem of Cultural Authority
Part I. The Indigestible Dutch
1. The Crystallization of an Anti-Dutch Narrative
2. From Nation to Linguistic Community
Part II. Pious Commoners
3. George Whitefield Awakens New York City
4. Becoming Religious Consumers
Part III. Defiant Dependents
5. "Master of the House"?
6. Attached to the Household
7. Sabotaging the Civilizers Conclusion: Tipping the Cultural Scales
