The Puritan Way of Death is more than a book about Puritans or about death. It is also about family, community, and identity in the modern world. Even before publication, eminent historians, sociologists, and religious scholars in the United States and Europea-among them, Gordon Wood, Philippe Ariès, William Clebsch, and Robert Nisbet-hailed it as a "pathbreaking, provocative, and exciting" work, a "terse, urbane, learned, clear, humane" volume.

A scholarly study which focuses on a single aspect of Puritan culture.

This comprehensive study of the intersection of death and religion offers a unique look at how religious people approach death in the twenty-first century. Previous scholarship has largely focused on traditional beliefs and paid little attention to how religious traditions evolve in relation to their changing social context. Employing a sociological approach, "Death and Religion in a Changing World" describes how people from a wide variety of faiths draw on and adapt traditional beliefs and practices as they deal with death in modern societies. The book includes coverage of newly emerging social and religious phenomena that are only just beginning to be analyzed by religion scholars, such as public shrines, the role of the media, spiritual bereavement groups, and the use of the Internet in death practices.

The Culture of English Puritanism is a major contribution to the debate on the nature and extent of early modern Puritanism. In their introduction the editors provide an up-to-date survey of the long-standing debate on Puritanism, before proceeding to outline their own definition of the movement. They argue that Puritanism should be defined as a unique and vibrant religious culture, which was grounded in a distinctive psychological outlook and which manifested itself in a set of highly characteristic religious practices. In the subsequent essays, a distinguished group of contributors consider in detail some of the most important aspects of this culture, in particular sermon-gadding, collective fasting, strict observance of Sunday, iconoclasm, and puritan attempts to reform alternative popular culture of their ungodly neighbours. Other contributions chart the channels through which puritan culture was sustained in the 80-year period proceding the English Civil War, the failure of attempts by the puritan government of Interregnum England to impose this puritan culture on the English people, the subsequent emergence of Dissent after 1600.

This fascinating book is the first volume in a projected cultural history of the United States, from the earliest English settlements to our own time. It is a history of American folkways as they have changed through time, and it argues a thesis about the importance for the United States of having been British in its cultural origins. While most people in the United States today have no British ancestors, they have assimilated regional cultures which were created by British colonists, even while preserving ethnic identities at the same time. In this sense, nearly all Americans are "Albion's Seed," no matter what their ethnicity may be. The concluding section of this remarkable book explores the ways that regional cultures have continued to dominate national politics from 1789 to 1988, and still help to shape attitudes toward education, government, gender, and violence, on which differences between American regions are greater than between European nations.

This book is a study in religion, culture, and social change. Taking the position that death is a cultural event, James J. Farrell examines the historical roots of contemporary American attitudes toward and practices concerning death. Middle-class Victorians tried to assuage their fear by making death appear natural, painless, predictable, beautiful, and ultimately inconspicuous. Scientific naturalism was a crucial catalyst of this transformation. Naturalists redefined death, the medical profession called for the establishment of rural cemeteries, and the sanitary science movement influenced embalming methods and funeral practices. The main part of this work describes and analyzes the convergence of the intellectual and social trends that changed American beliefs and behavior concerning death. The penultimate chapter focuses on Vermilion County, and the development of funeral practices in that specific place. The author uses local sources to add an empirical dimension to the intellectual history that characterizes the rest of the book. -- From publisher's description.

More well known for his Reformed Pastor, Richard Baxter was the outstanding pastor of Kidderminster. Dying Thoughts is his exposition of Paul's words in Philippians 1:23: 'For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ, which is far better.' Benjamin Fawcett who made this abridged version of the original work wrote, 'The "Dying Thoughts" of Mr. Baxter chiefly present to our view what every Christian may attain, and what it is the highest interest, as well as the indispensable duty of every Christian to aspire after.' In this little book, we see Baxter wrestling with his own doubts and fears as he faces eternity, jealously examining his own heart, anxious to test his own sincerity, taking nothing for granted. Baxter wanted to die with every grace in his soul in full vigour. A man of life passions as ourselves, his Dying Thoughts provides much needed counsel, strength and comfort because it deals with the same conflicts, complaints and desires which fill our own hearts.