Synopses & Reviews
As the leader of one of the most progressive religious sects to emerge from England, William Penn envisioned Pennsylvania as an example of how a God-inspired society could succeed in the wilderness of North America.
However, once in the New World, Quakers pursued both wealth and power, suggesting that even the most devout could not resist the temptations of the New World. Despite the moral struggle, Pennsylvania succeeded beyond anyone’s imagination. By Penn’s death in 1718, Pennsylvania was well on its way to becoming the most commercially successful colonial enterprise in English history.
The titles in the Library of American Biography Series make ideal supplements for American History Survey courses or other courses in American history where figures in history are explored. Paperback, brief, and inexpensive, each interpretative biography in this series focuses on a figure whose actions and ideas significantly influenced the course of American history and national life. At the same time, each biography relates the life of its subject to the broader themes and developments of the times.
Synopsis
As the leader of one of the most progressive religious sects to emerge from England, William Penn envisioned Pennsylvania as an example of how a God-inspired society could succeed in the wilderness of North America.
However, once in the New World, Quakers pursued both wealth and power, proving that even the most devout could not resist the temptations of the New World. Despite this moral struggle, Pennsylvania , succeeded beyond anyone’s imagination. By Penn’s death in 1718, Pennsylvania was well on its way to becoming the most commercially successful colonial enterprise in English history.
This new addition to the Library of American Biography Series vividly follows Penn from his time in England, the son of a revered war hero, to his controversial conversion to the Quaker faith, to the realization of his dream: the holy experiment, Pennsylvania.
Quaker, Pennsylvania, American colonies, William Penn. United States Survey 1, Upper-level colonial history courses
Table of Contents
Editor’s Preface
Author’s Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter One: “Gold to Me is dirt.”
Chapter Two: “Hellish Darkness and Debauchery.”
Chapter Three: “I owe my Conscience to no Mortal Man.”
Chapter Four: “I matter not your fetters.”
Chapter Five: “A larger imprisonment has not daunted me.”
Chapter Six: “Bless it and make it the seed of a nation.”
Chapter Seven: “A man fit as any in Europe to plant a country.”
Chapter Eight: “Not to devour and destroy one another.”
Chapter Nine: “With another face than I left them.”
Chapter Ten: “I am a man of sorrows.”
Chapter Eleven: “God is God and good.”
Chapter Twelve: “This licentious wilderness.”
Chapter Thirteen: “A soure temper’d people.”
Epilog and Legacy.