John Winthrop, Oliver Cromwell and the Land of Promise by Aronson, Marc - 2004

New York: Clarion Books. Very Good in Very Good dust jacket. 2004. First Edition. Hardcover. One or more corners may be bumped, and ends of spines may have light bumps. Jacket shows light wear over board bumps. This is a new book. ; The Ideas, Beliefs, and Individuals Behind the Creation of America; Remainder; Vol. 2; 205 pages; In this book, second in the series The Ideas, Beliefs, and Individuals Behind the Creation of America, Marc Aronson describes events in both England and New England, because, as he says in his introduction: '…the seventeenth-century people I describe could not have imagined them as separate. Only by recovering these links across the Atlantic can we make sense of our global past, or our global present.' The author tries to show that both Winthrop and Cromwell, inspired by their faith, attempted to create Heaven on earth, believing that they were near the end of time and fighting the first battles of the final war that would bring Jesus back to earth. This fervent belief helped Cromwell turn untrained men into the best cavalry in England. The same belief gave Winthrop the strength to build a strong colony in the New World. Both hoped for a perfect world, but both, along with their followers, began to realize that as long as people themselves are not perfect, and that these imperfect people govern human societies, there can be no Heaven on earth. Instead, new principles would be necessary for human beings to live in peace with each other -- religious tolerance, political democracy, and greater social equality. The author sees a parallel between the seventeenth century and today, as America and the West are the targets of extremists who use the language of Islam to preach holy war. He attempts to show that we are the heirs of radicals, not of established government, but that those radicals and their followers gradually saw the need for tolerance as time went on so that peace might prevail. And he shows how the preaching of Whitefield in the 1740's in Virginia, which exposed the African slaves to the Bible stories, gave those slaves an explanation for their enslavement and the hope of redemption. African Americans carried this vision of the Land of Promise into the 20th century, laying the foundation for the Civil Rights movement. And still, today, we carry this vision of the Promised Land, not as a physical place, but a state of mind -- the condition of being free. The end of the book contains many pages of extensive end notes and documentation, as well as a timeline of events and an index. Like all good histories and biographies, it has a point of view that captures us, showing how what happened yesterday is still relevant today. .