| Contents |
Introduction. Great Expectations: The Promise of Sincerity -- Moral Unmoorings: Fear and the Foundations of Settler Sincerity -- Dreaming on Dry Land: Thoughtfulness beyond Good Intentions -- Blood, Regret, and Tears: How to Put on Sincerity, and Why -- The Happiest Memories: Duties, Debts, and the Generation of Freedom -- Friendship, Fair and True: Sincerity Makes a Compromise with History -- Conclusion. Miserable Comforts: A Dialectical Lyric. |
| Abstract |
"New England's Puritans were devoted to self-scrutiny. Consumed by the pursuit of pure hearts, they latched on to sincerity as both an ideal and a social process. It fueled examinations of inner lives, governed behavior, and provided a standard against which both could be judged. But as Ana Schwartz demonstrates, if sincerity promised much, it often delivered more: it bred shame and resentment among the English settlers and, all too often, extraordinary violence toward their Algonquian neighbors and the captured Africans who lived among them. Populating her 'city on a hill' with the stock characters of Puritan studies as well as obscure actors, Schwartz breathes new life into our understanding of colonial New England"-- Provided by publisher. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Issued in other form | ebook version : 9781469671796 |
| Genre/form | History. |
| LCCN | 2022024394 |
| ISBN | 9781469671772 hardcover |
| ISBN | 1469671778 hardcover |
| ISBN | electronic book |
| ISBN | electronic book |
