A conspiracy theory flourished in New England in 1798, destroying reputations and lives—but few have ever heard the story. This gripping book chronicles the rise of the Bavarian Order of Illuminists, surveying the tumultuous political, social, and religious atmosphere that allowed the organization to take root in the United States. Author Vernon Stauffer characterizes the mood in New England after the Revolutionary War, an atmosphere of religious disaffection and political confusion that fostered the development and spread of panic and hysteria. Stauffer traces the European beginnings of the Bavarian Order of Illuminists and the transmission of its legend across the Atlantic, culminating in the effects of the Illuminati agitation in New England. This strictly factual account incorporates no conjecture and is enhanced by extensive footnotes. A compelling work of forgotten history, it is an essential resource for readers interested in the origins of conspiracy theory in American social and political thought.

Between 1750 and 1820, tides of revolution swept the Atlantic world. From the new industrial towns of Great Britain to the plantations of Haiti, they heralded both the rise of democratic nationalism and the subsequent surge of imperial reaction. In Imagining the British Atlantic after the American Revolution, nine essays consider these revolutionary transformations from a variety of literary, visual, and historical perspectives. On topics ranging from painting and poetry to prison reform, the essays challenge and complicate our understandings of revolution and reaction within the transatlantic imagination. Drawing on examples from different local and regional contexts, they demonstrate the many remarkably local ways that revolution and empire were experienced in London, Pennsylvania, Pitcairn Island, and points in between. Published by the University of Toronto Press in association with the UCLA Center for Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Studies and the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library.

"New England and the Bavarian Illuminati" by Vernon Stauffer is an academic text that examines the existence of hidden societies in the United States of America. These secret organizations have been the inspiration for countless stories throughout the years. While many are mere legends, others are very much based in fact, though they might be different than what people believe them to be.