NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY PRESS 

AUTHORIZING THE PAST: THE RHETORIC OF HISTORY IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY NEW ENGLAND

 By Stephen Carl Arch

 This first book-length analysis of seventeenth-century Puritan histories demonstrates the growing professionalism and sophistication of New England historiography as a genre. Arch analyzes successive texts to document a gradual but fundamental shift in the way New England historians understood themselves and their community. He presents new readings of the writings of John Winthrop, Edward Johnson, Increase Mather, and Cotton Mather.

256 pages  
0-87580-188-9   $30.00 cloth

October 2, 2000