William Penn

Profiles in Power

by Mary K. Geiter

William Penn (1644-1718) was the English Quaker who founded Pennsylvania. He left a greater mark on British North America than any other single individual in the colonial era. Voltaire described him as sovereign of his colony. This new book from the Profile in Power series assesses Penn's religious and political significance in Britain and America. While Penn's relations with the Society of Friends and his imprisonment for his liberal religious beliefs are well known, his role in English politics and court power are less well known. Politically ambitious, he drew on a wide body of dissenters, not just Friends, in order to further his national and moral aims. Addressing the themes of imperial politics, persecution and toleration, utopianism and reality, relations with native Americans and rebellion, the life of Penn makes a fascinating point of entry to the history of early colonization in America and to the English political upheavals of the late seventeenth century, including the Glorious Revolution. This book throws light on two very different worlds at a key moment of development.

200 pages, Hardcover

First published July 24, 2000

About the author

Mary K. Geiter has taught at the Colleges of Ripon and York St John, UK, the University of Leeds, the University of Maryland University College and the University of Massachusetts Summer Seminar in Trinity College, Oxford; and in the USA at Portland State University, Bloomsburg University and Immaculata College, Pennsylvania.