PROSTITUTING THE PULPIT? THE NEGOTIATED AUTHORITY OF EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY NEW ENGLAND CLERGY
OF DISSERTATION
The Mathers: Three Generations of Puritan Intellectuals, 1596-1728
In this classic work of American religious history, Robert Middlekauff traces the evolution of Puritan thought and theology in America from its origins in New England through the early eighteenth century. He focuses on three generations of intellectual ministers - Richard, Increase, and Cotton Mather - in order to challenge the traditional telling of the secularization of Puritanism, a story of faith transformed by reason, science, and business. Delving into the Mathers' private papers and unpublished writings as well as their sermons and published works, Middlekauff describes a Puritan theory of religious experience that is more creative, complex, and uncompromising than traditional accounts have allowed. At the same time, he portrays changing ideas and patterns of behavior that reveal much about the first hundred years of American life.
The demographic history of the northern european countries in the eighteenth century
Summary The remarkable statistics of the Northern countries available for the greater part of the eighteenth century give demographers valuable information on population structure and developments two hundred years ago, information which cannot be obtained from other sources. In many respects the structure of the population in the Northern countries differed fundamentally from that prevailing nowadays in the same areas. Thus the age distribution was quite different, with comparatively many young people; a large proportion of the adult population were married because nuptiality was high not only among spinsters and bachelors but also among widowed persons; legitimate fertility was high and illegitimate fertility low; and mortality was high, especially infant mortality. It is significant that although the death-rates were between two and three times as high as to-day and the expectation of life was only about half the present, the biological vitality of the population of the eighteenth century was higher th...