Drawing on hitherto unexamined manuscripts, this book challenges the standard narrative that English presbyterianism was successfully extinguished from the late sixteenth century until its prominent public resurgence during the English Civil War.

Keith L. Sprunger is Oswald H. Wedel Professor of History Emeritus at Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas. His main scholarly interests are seventeenth-century English and Dutch Puritanism, the history of printing, Mennonite history, oral history, and historic preservation. Publications include The Learned Doctor William Ames (1972), Dutch Puritanism (1982), Trumpets from the Tower (1994), and Bethel College of Kansas 1887-2012 (2012). He enjoys collecting antiquarian books and historical postcards.

A work of major importance for the economic history of both Europe and North America.

An analysis of the networks constructed between Puritan ministers before the English Civil War.

The life of John Davenport, who co-founded the colony of New Haven, has long been overshadowed by his reputation as the most draconian of all Puritan leaders in New England—a reputation he earned due to his opposition to many of the changes that were transforming New England in the post-Restoration era. In this first biography of Davenport, Francis J. Bremer shows that he was in many ways actually a remarkably progressive leader for his time, with a strong commitment to education for both women and men, a vibrant interest in new science, and a dedication to promoting and upholding democratic principles in his congregation at a time when many other Puritan clergymen were emphasizing the power of their office above all else. Bremer’s enlightening and accessible biography of an important figure in New England history provides a unique perspective on the seventeenth-century transatlantic Puritan movement.