History

A colonial woman's riveting personal journal and correspondence opens a window on America's first-generation evangelicals.

"In this clearly written volume, Hawke provides enlightening and colorful descriptions of early Colonial Americans and debunks many widely held assumptions about 17th century settlers."--Publishers Weekly

An epic of slavery, freedom, and the will to succeed. This definitive biography tells the story of the former slave Olaudah Equiano (1745?-97), who in his day was the English-speaking world's most renowned person of African descent.

This sweeping history of popular religion in eighteenth-century New England examines the experiences of ordinary people living through extraordinary times. Drawing on an unprecedented quantity of letters, diaries, and testimonies, Douglas Winiarski recovers the pervasive and vigorous lay piety of the early eighteenth century.

Produced under the auspices of the American Council of Learned Societies, the ANB contains over 17,500 profiles on historical figures written by an expert in the field and completed with a bibliography.

Entries from previous editions have been updated and revised in light of historical developments and current scholarship, and more than 800 new entries cover recent events and topics not covered previously.

This 11-volume set contains, in one chronological compilation, the history of the United States of America from its prehistoric ancestors to its 21st-century citizens.

The Encyclopedia of Christianity in the United States outlines the myriad roles Christianity has played and continues to play.

With over 1,400 entries written by some 900 historians and other scholars, it illuminates not only America's political, diplomatic, and military history, but also social, cultural, and intellectual trends; science, technology, and medicine; the arts; and religion.

Makes available in a superb scholarly edition not only the first published autobiography by a native American (1829 originally), but also a range of historical, political, and personal writings. -- New York Times Book Review

Anne Bradstreet, the first true poet in the American colonies, wrote at a time and in a place where any literary creation was rare and difficult and that of a woman more unusual still. Born in England and brought up in the household of the Earl of Lincoln where her father, Thomas Dudley, was steward, Anne Bradstreet sailed to Massachusetts Bay in 1630, shortly after her marriage at sixteen to Simon Bradstreet. For the next forty years she lived in the New England wilderness, raising a family of eight, combating sickness and hardship, and writing the verse that made her, as the poet Adrienne Rich says in her Foreword to this edition, "the first non-didactic American poet, the first to give an embodiment to American nature, the first in whom personal intention appears to precede Puritan dogma as an impulse to verse."

Daughter of Jonathan Edwards and mother of Aaron Burr, Mrs. Burr describes he experiences in colonial America.

Enthralling generations of readers, the narrative of capture by Native Americans is arguably the first American literary form dominated by the experiences of women. The ten selections in this anthology span the early history of this country (1682-1892) and range in literary style from fact-based narrations to largely fictional, spellbinding adventure stories.

One of the most influential literary documents in American and African American history, now available in a critical edition "This edition is the most valuable teaching tool on slavery and abolition available today. It is exceptional."--Nancy Hewitt, Distinguished Professor Emerita, Rutgers University

Interpreting the Great Awakening of the eighteenth century was in large part the work of Jonathan Edwards; whose writings on the subject defined the revival tradition in America. Moving from sensitive descriptions of "the Surprising work of God" in conversion to a consuming quest for the essence of true religion, and threading his way through mounting controversies over "errors in doctrine and disorders in practice," Edwards sought to locate an authentic core of evangelical experience, to define it in terms of biblical faith and psychological insight, and to defend it against both overheated zealous and rationalistic critics.

Edwards' Life of David Brainerd is a rare, almost forgotten document depicting life in pre-Revolutionary America during the period when religious enthusiasm swept the colonial frontier.

This volume gathers together for the first time all known extant letters of Jonathan Edwards, along with his major personal writings. These letters and personal writings reveal the private man behind the treatises and sermons. They trace his relations with parents, siblings, college classmates, friends, and family, as well as with political, religious, and educational leaders of his day.

Completely revised and edited with an introduction and notes by Vincent Carretta. A spirited autobiography, a tale of spiritual quest and fulfillment, and a sophisticated treatise on religion, politics, and economics, The Interesting Narrative is a work of enduring literary and historical value.

A collection of many pieces by Franklin that reflect the life and times of Colonial and Revolutionary America, including Franklin's autobiography.

The Antinomian controversy a seventeenth-century theological crisis concerning salvation was the first great intellectual crisis in the settlement of New England. Transcending the theological questions from which it arose, this symbolic controversy became a conflict between power and freedom of conscience. David D. Hall s thorough documentary history of this episode sheds important light on religion, society, and gender in early American history.

Now Available in a Second edition, this superb documentary collection illuminates the history of witchcraft and witch-hunting in seventeenth-century New England.

Get to know the real Alexander Hamilton in this Library of America collection of the Founding Father's own public and private writings.

Examining the first- and best-known female account of life under, and escape from, slavery, Incidents in the Life of A Slave Girl, Written by Herself recounts Harriet Jacobs' story and shows how she used the written word to liberate herself and promote the end of slavery by inspiring sympathy.

This volume brings together for the first time the known writings of the pioneering Native American religious and political leader, intellectual, and author, Samson Occom (Mohegan; 1723-1792). The largest surviving archive of American Indian writing before Charles Eastman (Santee Sioux; 1858-1939), Occom's writings offer unparalleled views into a Native American intellectual and cultural universe in the era of colonialization and the early United States.

Eliza Lucas Pinckney was one of the most distinguished women of colonial America, pioneering the large-scale cultivation of indigo in South Carolina. Her letters reveal an eventful life with myriad interests, changing politics, innovative ideas about slavery, and an unusually happy marriage.

v. 1. Sincere convert
• Sound believer
• The saint's jewel, showing how to apply the promises
• Certain select cases resolved tending to the right ordering of the heart
• The first principles of the oracles of God.

v. 2. Parables of the ten virgins

v. 3. Theses Sabbaticae
• A wholesome caveat for a time of liberty
• Ineffectual hearing of the Word
• Meditations and spiritual experiences
• The clear sunshine of the Gospel breaking forth upon the Indians in New England
• The church membership of children.

A fiery speaker, Sojourner Truth was among the foremost American women evangelists. This reprint of her 1878 publication sheds light on the life of an ex-slave and ardent abolitionist.

This edition includes all of the known surviving writings of the poet Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784), several of which have been discovered since the last attempt at a complete edition was published in 2001. Of the fifty-seven poems, as well as their authoritative variants, forty-six were published during her lifetime. Versions of nine of them were published before September 1773. Wheatley published thirty-eight works in Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (London, 1773). Only seven of her poems were published between 1773 and her death in 1784. Eleven poems survive only in manuscript versions. This edition also includes all of Wheatley's extant prose writings.

Designed first to terrify readers with examples of divine retribution against lives gone wrong, and later to excite prurient imaginations, criminal narratives comprise a significant but forgotten genre of American literature. The representation of crime and the characterization of criminals in these narratives, according to Williams, offer an accurate index of more widespread social transformations, such as the secularization of society and the growth of capitalism.