Tenacious of Their Liberties

This study approaches the Puritan experience from the perspective of the pew, rather than the pulpit. For the past ten years, James Cooper has immersed himself in local Massachusetts manuscript church records. From these previously untapped documents emerge individuals who henceforth will deserve mention alongside the clerical and elite personages who for so long have populated histories of the period. Cooper's new findings both challenge existing models of church hierarchy and offer a new understanding of the origins of New England democracy.