Puritanism

What is the Legacy of the English Civil War?

Jonathan Healey's "The Blazing World" insists on seeing the ideological and theological roots of revolt as drivers of insurgency. 

Who Still Needs the Carnivalesque?

by Ed Simon

Despite its repeated theorization, the political meaning of carnivals and the social inversions they temporarily enable remains hotly debated. 

British and Irish Historians Discuss Oliver Cromwell

Patrick Geoghegan talks all things Cromwell with a panel of historians. 

What Elizabeth Johnson’s Exoneration Teaches about the Salem Witch Hunt

by Tony Fels

The Massachusetts legislature recently exonerated Elizabeth Johnson, though her confession and conviction shows how "members of the Puritan communities of early Massachusetts could readily convince themselves that in some way or other, perhaps at a moment of weakness, they really had allowed Satan into their lives."

Civics Teacher and Students Help Win Exoneration for Last Convicted Witch in Massachusetts

Carrie LaPierre of North Andover turned a project on the legislative process into an amendment to the state budget bill. Elizabeth Johnson's 1693 conviction was finally overturned. 

Breaking Up With Marilynne Robinson Over the Dark Side of Puritanism

by Peter Laarman

A minister and activist argues that the novelist and essayist's defense of the New England Puritans as prototypical human rights heroes ignores the very clear limits that historians have identified for Puritanism's conceptions of social belonging.