American Jezebel : The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman Who Defied the Puritans
by Eve LaPlante
List Price:
Our Price: $20.23
You Save: $4.72 (19%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $15.43 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Eve LaPlanteEdition: Hardcover
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2004-03
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 336
Book Reviews of American Jezebel : The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman Who Defied the Puritans
Book Review: A Fanatic Among Fanatics
Summary: 3 Stars
Eve LaPlante's life of her infamous ancestor is a labor of love. It is chock-a-block with details about Hutchinson's descendants and about the current state of various places she visited that most likely will be of interest only to ... Hutchinson's descendants. Yet, it is more than that: it is a sympathetic account of perhaps the most eminent person to be thrown out of Puritan Massachusetts.
The issue over which Hutchinson ultimately suffered the fate of Roger Williams and, later, the Massachusetts Quakers was that of the sufficiency of the Scriptures to Protestant life. According to Hutchinson, she had received her un-Puritan ideas directly from God. This contradicted one of the two basic Protestant principles, _Sola Scriptura_ -- that the only authority a Protestant need recognize is that of the Scriptures, which supposedly spoke clearly and for themselves.
LaPlante is angry with the Puritan authorities, but what else could they have done than what they did? As in Williams' case, it is not as if Governor John Winthrop's opponent gave him a lot of choice. The alternative to banishing Hutchinson would have been to see her unshakable self-righteousness continue to fracture the Bay State. This meant the failure of the New England experiment. In individual cases, as the Puritan authorities understood it, it meant that particular people persuaded to adopt Hutchinson's way of seeing things would be condemned to eternity in Hell.
Contrary to the Publishers Weekly review above, the Puritans certainly DID NOT teach that the covenant of works was the only guarantee of salvation. What they held was essentially that faith without works is dead (gee, I wonder where they got that idea). LaPlante recognizes the difficulty posed by Hutchinson's position: that it would mean that there was no real indication in this life whether the individual believer was "saved," to borrow a contemporary term.
LaPlante joins Karlsen in insisting that her subject's fate would have been different if only she had been a male. Yet, with Williams in mind, she should have known better than that. Irresistible though this trendy idea may be, one doubts that the several men expelled as part of the anti-Hutchinson purge would have found it very persuasive.
Hutchinson had her revenge, of course: her descendants included a governor of Massachusetts, two governors of Rhode Island, and three presidents of the United States (at least one of whom seems as blissfully, fanatically self-righteous as his forebear), and she has been declared to be in good odor in recent decades by the government of Massachusetts itself.
If feeling less charitable, however, one might note that Hutchinson's devotion to an incomprehensible, insupportable, and indeed ultimately nonsensical theological position does not make her a very sympathetic figure. Her hard-headed certainty that she knew the mind of God led to the brutal murder not only of Hutchinson herself, but of several of her children. Winthrop's response to the news of that event was very ugly, but he was right to hold that her odd views accounted for her end.
More American Jezebel : The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman Who Defied the Puritans reviews:
1 2 3 4 5 6
1 2 3 4 5 6
Summary of American Jezebel : The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman Who Defied the Puritans
Anne Hutchinson, a forty-six- year-old midwife who was pregnant with her sixteenth child, stood before forty male judges of the Massachusetts General Court, charged with heresy and sedition. In a time when women could not vote, hold public office, or teach outside the home, the charismatic Hutchinson wielded remarkable political power. Her unconventional ideas had attracted a following of prominent citizens eager for social reform. Hutchinson defended herself brilliantly, but the judges, faced with a perceived threat to public order, banished her for behaving in a manner "not comely for her] sex." Until now, Hutchinson has been a polarizing figure in American history and letters, attracting either disdain or exaltation. Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was haunted by the "sainted" Hutchinson, used her as a model for Hester Prynne in "The Scarlet Letter." Much of the praise for her, however, is muted by a wish to domesticate the heroine: the bronze statue of Hutchinson at the Massachusetts State House depicts a prayerful mother -- eyes raised to heaven, a child at her side -- rather than a woman of power standing alone before humanity and God. Her detractors, starting with her neighbor John Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts, referred to her as "the instrument of Satan," the new Eve, the "disturber of Israel," a witch, "more bold than a man," and Jezebel -- the ancient Israeli queen who, on account of her tremendous political power, was "the most evil woman" in the Bible. Written by one of Hutchinson's direct descendants, "American Jezebel" brings both balance and perspective to Hutchinson's story. It captures this American heroine's life in all its complexity, presenting hernot as a religious fanatic, a cardboard feminist, or a raging crank -- as some have portrayed her -- but as a flesh-and-blood wife, mother, theologian, and political leader. Opening in a colonial courtroom, "American Jezebel" moves back in time to Hutchinson's childhood in Elizabethan England, exploring intimate details of her marriage and family life. The book narrates her dramatic expulsion from Massachusetts, after which her judges, still threatened by her challenges, promptly built Harvard College to enforce religious and social orthodoxies -- making her midwife to the nation's first college. In exile, she settled Rhode Island (which later merged with Roger Williams's Providence Plantation), becoming the only woman ever to co-found an American colony. The seeds of the American struggle for women's and human rights can be found in the story of this one woman's courageous life. "American Jezebel" illuminates the origins of our modern concepts of religious freedom, equal rights, and free speech, and showcases an extraordinary woman whose achievements are astonishing by the standards of any era.Women Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Audiobooks on Cassette
- Audiobooks on CD
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- e-Books
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Women Books
Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire (Modern Library Paperbacks)by Amanda Foreman
Modern Library; Published: 2001-01-16; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.94
Price in other shops:
Same Kind of Different As Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Togetherby Ron Hall, Denver Moore
Thomas Nelson; Published: 2008-03-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.68
Price in other shops:
I Hope They Serve Beer In Hellby Tucker Max
Citadel Press; Published: 2006-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.39
Price in other shops:
Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelseaby Chelsea Handler
Simon Spotlight Entertainment; Published: 2008-04-22; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.14
Price in other shops:
My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Standsby Chelsea Handler
Bloomsbury USA; Published: 2005-06-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.98
Price in other shops:
The Glass Castle: A Memoirby Jeannette Walls
Scribner; Published: 2006-01-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.40
Price in other shops:
The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artistsby Neil Strauss
William Morrow; Published: 2005-09-01; Imitation Leather; Book
Best price: $18.14
Price in other shops:
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesiaby Elizabeth Gilbert
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2007-01-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.00
Price in other shops:
Here's the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voiceby Maureen Mccormick
William Morrow; Published: 2008-10-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.75
Price in other shops:
Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Timeby Greg Mortenson, David Oliver Relin
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2007-01-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
Empires at War: The French and Indian War and the Struggle for North America, 1754-1763by William M. Fowler
Walker & Company; Published: 2006-01-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.15
Price in other shops:
A Matter of Conscience: The Trial of Anne Hutchinson (Stories of America/ 81107)by Joan Kane Nichols
Steck-Vaughn; Published: 1992-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops:
The Peopling of British North America: An Introductionby Bernard Bailyn
Vintage; Published: 1988-04-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.15
Price in other shops:
The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: with Related Documents (The Bedford Series in History and Culture)by Mary Rowlandson
Bedford/St. Martin's; Published: 1997-02-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.00
New Worlds for All: Indians, Europeans, and the Remaking of Early America (The American Moment)by Colin G. Calloway
The Johns Hopkins University Press; Published: 1998-02-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.00
Price in other shops:
Anne Hutchinson: Unsung Heroine of Historyby Bianca A. Leonardo, Winnifred King Rugg
Progressive Press; Published: 1996-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.95
Price in other shops:
The Times And Trials Of Anne Hutchinson: Puritans Divided (Landmark Law Cases & American Society)by Michael P. Winship
University Press of Kansas; Published: 2005-03-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.50
Price in other shops:
Salem Witch Judge: The Life and Repentance of Samuel Sewallby Eve Laplante
HarperOne; Published: 2008-11-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.50
Price in other shops:
Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
Vintage; Published: 1991-06-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.95
Price in other shops:
Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguezby Richard Rodriguez
Dial Press Trade Paperback; Published: 2004-02-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.53