Overview

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.

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9781469671772

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Reviews

Building on extensive literary theory, Ana Schwartz explores the actions, words, and especially the silence of social dissenters in the seventeenth-century 'frontier' world, infused with guilt for possessing a land that was not their own.""--Journal of American History Unmoored allows us to witness repression's skill. Closely examining this sophisticated process, we might be able better to determine, perhaps mitigate, our own conscription onto a 'similarly unhappy stage' (33-34).""--William and Mary Quarterly

Unmoored allows us to witness repression's skill. Closely examining this sophisticated process, we might be able better to determine, perhaps mitigate, our own conscription onto a 'similarly unhappy stage' (33-34).""--William and Mary Quarterly

Author Information

Ana Schwartz is assistant professor of English at University of Texas at Austin

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