Inventing Eden: Primitivism, Millennialism, and the Making of New England

by Zachery McLeod Hutchins

Previous scholars have noted the Puritans' edenic descriptions of New World landscapes, but Inventing Eden is the first study to fully uncover the integral relationship between the New England interest in paradise and the numerous iconic intellectual artifacts and social movements of colonial North America. Harvard Yard, the Bay Psalm Book, and the Quaker use of antiquated pronouns like thee and thou: these are products of a seventeenth-century desire for Eden. So, too, are the evangelical emphasis of the Great Awakening, the doctrine of natural law popularized by the Declaration of Independence, and the first United States judicial decision abolishing slavery. Be it public nudity or Freemasonry, Zachary Hutchins convincingly shows how a shared wish to bring paradise into the pragmatic details of colonial living had a profound effect on early New England life and its substantial culture of letters.

Spanning two centuries and surveying the works of major British and American thinkers from James Harrington and John Milton to Anne Hutchinson and Benjamin Franklin, Inventing Eden is the history of an idea that irrevocably altered the theology, literature, and culture of colonial New England -- and, eventually, the new republic.

344 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Freya Abbas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very impressive book that argues that the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis shaped New England Puritan attitudes on government, language, education, and basically all aspects of life. Eden was a historical fact according to them and something that it was possible to return to in the future. The author does a great job of differentiating Eden from Arcadia, Utopia, Paradise, and other ideal societies in early modern thought. This was a delight to read, and as a scholar in this field I can see how the emphasis on restoring Adam's prelapsarian knowledge and on biblical Hebrew and plain style English will be influential on my work.