Founding Fathers: Puritans in England and America by John Adair

Early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I a group of people emerged who wished to further purify the Church of England and the society in which they lived. They were labelled Puritans.

Inspired by ideas from the Reformation as well as the Renaissance these ‘hotter sort of Protestants’ shaped two of the most momentous events of the seventeenth century: the foundation of New England and the English Civil War.

John Adair’s brilliant book is a highly readable account that explores the origins of the Puritans, their shared and differing ideas, and how, even though their final years were marked with dissension and decline, their values have had a vast and continuing influence on the moral framework of northern European and North American civilization.

Drawing upon the letters, diaries and writings of Civil War leaders Sir William Waller and Oliver Cromwell along with those of early New England pioneers like Anne Hutchinson and John Winthrop, Adair delivers a vivid narrative of life as a Puritan during these tumultuous decades when the religious and political worlds were reshaped.