The Unitarian Conscience: Harvard Moral Philosophy, 1805-1861

by Daniel Walker Howe

Book by Howe, Daniel Walker

Genres: Philosophy, American History, History

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

A specialist in the intellectual and religious history of the United States during the antebellum era, Daniel Walker Howe was Rhodes Professor of American History Emeritus at Oxford University in England and Professor of History Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles. He received the Pulitzer Prize for History for What Hath God Wrought, his most famous book. He was president of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic in 2001 and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Howe graduated from East High School (Denver, Colorado), and received his Bachelor of Arts at Harvard University, magna cum laude in American History and Literature in 1959, and his Ph.D. at University of California, Berkeley in 1966.

Howe's connection with Oxford University began when he matriculated at Magdalen College to read Modern History in 1960; he took his M.A. in 1965. In 1989–1990, he was Harmsworth Visiting Professor of American History at Oxford and a Fellow of Queen's College. In 1992, he became a permanent member of the Oxford History Faculty and a Fellow of St Catherine's College, Oxford until his retirement in 2002. Brasenose College elected him an Honorary Member of their Senior Common Room.

Reviews

[Ted · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book reports and analyzes the philosophy of twelve Unitarian ministers in the first half of the 18th Century. All twelve attended Harvard and four are faculty members. All live in Boston or nearby.

There philosophy is more conservative than the better known and more liberal Transcendentalists, many of whom were also Unitarians. A good book for a deeper look at 19th century Unitarianism and insight into the social and intellectual world of contemporary Boston as a whole.