"The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop"

Paper Summary:

This paper summarizes and reviews Edmund S. Morgan's book on Puritan life in America, the dilemma faced by Puritans, and in particular, the book's subject John Winthrop, concerning the question of what responsibility a righteous man owes to society. The paper then compares this dilemma with political dilemmas that America has wrestled with from its inception.

From the Paper:

"What Mr. Morgan manages in this book is to show us that even 370 years ago, John Winthrop was already confronting many of what would be enduring themes and challenges of the American experiment. The struggle over how democratic America should be has been at the very core of our politics. Separationism would eventually lead to revolution and the split with Great Britain and then would explode most disastrously in the Civil War. Elitism (Armenianism) has been evident in America's troubled history of race relations and periodic bouts of xenophobic anti-immigrant fever. Twentieth Century nihilism (Antinomianism) would prove far more virulent than the Seventeenth Century variant, because no longer at least a function of religious faith. And, Isolationism has been a constant temptation, mostly working to our advantage but also leaving us unprepared for things like Pearl Harbor and 9-11."

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