Perspective

The author of The Puritan Dilemma is Edmund Sears Morgan, born in 1916. He is widely respected as an authority on early American history and currently is employed as an emeritus professor of history at Yale, where he taught from 1955 to 1986. During this time, he wrote many books on early American history, including The Puritan Dilemma. This book has been used for decades in undergraduate courses in history.

Morgan won the Columbia University Bancroft Prize in American History and President Clinton gave him the 2000 National Humanities Medal for his contributions to American culture. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 2006.

Unlike many historians, Morgan does not try to hide his views on the Puritans entirely. While most of his discussion of Winthrop and the Puritans sticks to the facts, he occasionally makes criticisms. For instance, to keep themselves holy, the Puritans more or less converted their society into an enormous...