New England's Puritans were devoted to self-scrutiny. Consumed by the pursuit of pure hearts, they latched on to sincerity as both an ideal and a social process. It fueled examinations of inner lives, governed behavior, and provided a standard against which both could be judged. In a remote, politically volatile frontier, settlers gambled that sincerity would reinforce social cohesion and shore up communal happiness. Sincere feelings and the discursive practices that manifested them promised a safe haven in a world of grinding uncertainty. But as Ana Schwartz demonstrates, if sincerity promised much, it often delivered more: it bred shame and resentment among the English settlers and, all too often, extraordinary violence toward their Algonquian neighbors and the captured Africans who lived among them. Populating her "city on a hill" with the stock characters of Puritan studies as well as obscure actors, Schwartz breathes new life into our understanding of colonial New England.
| ISBN: | 9781469671772 |
| Publication date: | 30th January 2023 |
| Author: | Ana Schwartz |
| Publisher: | The University of North Carolina Press |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 296 pages |
| Series: | Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press |
| Genres: |
History of the Americas Literary studies: general |