Philip J Greven's Books

The Protestant Temperament

By: Philip J. Greven, Jr.

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Bringing together an extraordinary richness of evidence—from letters, diaries, and other intimate family writing of the 17th and 18th centuries—Philip Greven, the distinguished scholar of colonial history explores the strikingly distinctive ways in which Protestant children were reared, and the Protestant temperament shaped, in America. Through this cache of remarkable and remarkably immediate and moving material – the family papers of some of America’s most famous theologians, political figures, lawyers, and ministers as well as those of lesser-known contemporaries (farmers, merchants, housewives) who embodied Protestant life and wrote about it most expressively—Philip Greven traces the hidden continuities of religious experience, of attitudes toward God, children, the will, the body, sexuality, achievement, pleasure, virtue, and selfhood among the three Protestant groups of the time. He examines, in turn, the three strains that persisted regardless of denomination. First, the “evangelicals” (their dictum for raising children: “Break their wills that you may save their souls”), ruled by a hostility to the self, a feeling that selfhood is the source of sin, too dangerous to be sought or desired (Jonathan Edwards wrote: “I have been before God and have given myself, all that I am, and have, to God; so that I am not, in any respect, my own . . . I have given myself clear away”). And we hear the products of this upbringing, in their twenties and thirties, speaking of themselves in the harshest tones (“My affections carnal, corrupt, and disordered”), distrusting themselves in the most profound ways (a woman faced with the choice of a husband wrote: “I dare not decide myself and dread nothing more than to be left to the Bent of my own heart”). In counterpoint, we see the “moderates,” poised between duty and personal desire, preoccupied but not obsessed with morality, more interested in self-control than self-suppression (an eminent Unitarian, the Reverend Theodore Parker of Boston, wrote: “The will needs regulation, not destroying. I should as soon think of breaking the legs of a horse in training him, as a child’s will”). And, finally, we see the “genteel” in polite society, taking their state of grace for granted, more interested in self-assertion than self-control, completely at ease with ambition and worldliness—music, dancing, games, convivial drinking, hunting, and sports all an integral part of the children’s lives as they grow into maturity; the boys groomed for social responsibility, the girls encouraged to be “steady, studious, docile, with a mild and winning presence, a sweet, obliging temper . . . ” The Protestant Temperament uncovers the personal experience and the psychological and social effects of religion and piety in the American of the 17th and 18th centuries, the feelings as well as the beliefs of religious people. Fascinating and groundbreaking in its revelations and its radical reassessment of the role of religion in early American life, Philip Greven’s book is a major intellectual event, an important and illuminating interpretation of the American Protestant experience.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

660

Publisher

Knopf

Published Date

ISBN 10

0307831345

ISBN 13

9780307831347

Children in Colonial America

By: James Marten,Philip J Greven

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Children in Colonial America

By: James Marten,Philip J Greven

The Pilgrims and Puritans did not arrive on the shores of New England alone. Nor did African men and women, brought to the Americas as slaves. Though it would be hard to tell from the historical record, European colonists and African slaves had children, as did the indigenous families whom they encountered, and those children's life experiences enrich and complicate our understanding of colonial America. Through essays, primary documents, and contemporary illustrations, Children in Colonial America examines the unique aspects of childhood in the American colonies between the late sixteenth and late eighteenth centuries. The twelve original essays observe a diverse cross-section of children—from indigenous peoples of the east coast and Mexico to Dutch-born children of the Plymouth colony and African-born offspring of slaves in the Caribbean—and explore themes including parenting and childrearing practices, children's health and education, sibling relations, child abuse, mental health, gender, play, and rites of passage. Taken together, the essays and documents in Children in Colonial America shed light on the ways in which the process of colonization shaped childhood, and in turn how the experience of children affected life in colonial America.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

375

Publisher

NYU Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0814795803

ISBN 13

9780814795804

Slave Counterpoint

Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry

By: Philip D. Morgan

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Slave Counterpoint

Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry

By: Philip D. Morgan

On the eve of the American Revolution, nearly three-quarters of all African Americans in mainland British America lived in two regions: the Chesapeake, centered in Virginia, and the Lowcountry, with its hub in South Carolina. Here, Philip Morgan compares and contrasts African American life in these two regional black cultures, exploring the differences as well as the similarities. The result is a detailed and comprehensive view of slave life in the colonial American South. Morgan explores the role of land and labor in shaping culture, the everyday contacts of masters and slaves that defined the possibilities and limitations of cultural exchange, and finally the interior lives of blacks--their social relations, their family and kin ties, and the major symbolic dimensions of life: language, play, and religion. He provides a balanced appreciation for the oppressiveness of bondage and for the ability of slaves to shape their lives, showing that, whatever the constraints, slaves contributed to the making of their history. Victims of a brutal, dehumanizing system, slaves nevertheless strove to create order in their lives, to preserve their humanity, to achieve dignity, and to sustain dreams of a better future.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

730

Publisher

UNC Press Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807838535

ISBN 13

9780807838532

The Crossroads of American History and Literature

By: Philip F. Gura

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Crossroads of American History and Literature

By: Philip F. Gura

The Crossroads of American History and Literature collects two decades' worth of the best-known essays of Philip F. Gura. Beginning with a definitive overview of studies of colonial literature, Gura ranges through such subjects in colonial American history as the intellectual life of the Connecticut River Valley, Cotton Mather's understanding of political leadership, and the religious upheavals of the Great Awakening. In the nineteenth century, he visits such varied topics as the history of print culture in rural communities, the philological interests of the Transcendentalist Elizabeth Peabody, the craft and business of the early Amerian music trades, and Thoreau's interest in exploration literature and in the Native American. Displaying remarkable sophistication in a variety of fields that, taken together, constitute the heart of American Studies, this collection illustrates the complexity of American cultural history.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

304

Publisher

Penn State Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0271024836

ISBN 13

9780271024837

Four Generations

Population, Land, and Family in Colonial Andover, Massachusetts

By: Philip Greven

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Four Generations

Population, Land, and Family in Colonial Andover, Massachusetts

By: Philip Greven

A groundbreaking study in colonial history, this book gives a remarkably detailed picture of life in an early American community. It focuses on three basic and interrelated subjects largely neglected by historians—population, land, and the family—as they affected the lives of four successive generations. Applying demographic methods to historical research, Professor Greven presents new and unexpected evidence about the most basic aspects of family life in colonial America, and shows how these characteristics changed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

357

Publisher

Cornell University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1501725033

ISBN 13

9781501725036

The Protestant Temperament

By: Philip J. Greven, Jr.

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Protestant Temperament

By: Philip J. Greven, Jr.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

660

Publisher

Knopf

Published Date

ISBN 10

0307831345

ISBN 13

9780307831347

Beekmantown, New York

Forest Frontier to Farm Community

By: Philip L. White

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Beekmantown, New York

Forest Frontier to Farm Community

By: Philip L. White

This volume reports in detail how a particular portion of the American wilderness developed into a settled farming community. To fully comprehend the history of the American people in the early national period, an understanding of this transformation from forest to community—and the pattern of life within such communities where the vast majority of the people live—is essential. Three major conclusions emerge from Philip L. White's study of Beekmantown, New York. First, the economic advantages of the frontier attracted a first generation of settlers relatively high in social and economic status, but the disappearance of frontier conditions brought a second generation of settlers appreciably lower in status. Second, White rejects the romantic notion that the frontier fostered equality and argues instead that the frontier's economic opportunities fostered inequality. Finally, in contrast to revisionist arguments, he affirms that in Beekmantown the Jacksonian period does indeed warrant characterization as the era of the "common man." This book represents a model in community history: the narrative is full of human interest; the scholarship is prodigious; the applications are universal.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

399

Publisher

University of Texas Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1477303502

ISBN 13

9781477303504

Four Generations

Population, Land, and Family in Colonial Andover, Massachusetts

By: Philip Greven

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Four Generations

Population, Land, and Family in Colonial Andover, Massachusetts

By: Philip Greven

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

357

Publisher

Cornell University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1501725033

ISBN 13

9781501725036

Children in Colonial America

By: James Marten,Philip J Greven

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Children in Colonial America

By: James Marten,Philip J Greven

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

375

Publisher

NYU Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0814795803

ISBN 13

9780814795804

Book's by Philip J Greven

The Protestant Temperament

The Protestant Temperament

Children in Colonial America

Children in Colonial America

Slave Counterpoint

Slave Counterpoint

The Crossroads of American History and Literature

The Crossroads of American History and Literature

Four Generations

Four Generations

The Protestant Temperament

The Protestant Temperament

Beekmantown, New York

Beekmantown, New York

Four Generations

Four Generations

Children in Colonial America

Children in Colonial America

Username

Password

Username

Password

Password again

Birthday

Email