Ebook: John Winthrop: America's forgotten founding father

The preeminent figure of early New England, John Winthrop was the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. More than anyone else, he shaped the culture of New England, and his effort to create a Puritan "City on a Hill" has had a lasting effect on American values. [In this volume, the author] draws on over a decade of research in England, Ireland, and the United States to offer a biography of Winthrop, one rooted in a detailed understanding of his first forty years in England. [He] provides an extensive treatment of Winthrop's family background, youthful development, and English career. His dissatisfaction with the decline of the "godly kingdom of the Stour Valley" in which he had been raised led him on his errand to rebuild such a society in a New England. In America, Winthrop would use the skills he had developed in England as he struggled with challenges from Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, among others, and defended the colony from English interference. We also see the personal side of Winthrop - the doubts and concerns of the spiritual pilgrim, his everyday labors and pleasures, his feelings for family and friends. [He] also sheds much light on important historical moments in England and America, such as the Reformation and the rise of Puritanism, the rise of the middling class, the colonization movement, and colonial relations with Native Americans.-Dust jacket.;Heritage: Lavenham to London; Reformation; John and Adam -- Struggle: Youth; Turning Points; Godly Magistrate; Godly Embattled; Decision to Migrate -- Christian Chanty -- Errand: Passing Through Hell; The Best of Them Was But an Attorney; Relations with England; On the Fringe; War; Struggling to Hold the Center; New Trials and Disappointments; War Clouds and Concerns; Under Attack -- Last Years.