Includes bibliographical references (pages 296-339) and index.

Rise and retreat, 1540-1630: The seeds of Puritanism -- Proto-Puritans in exile -- The birth panges of Puritan England -- The Elizabethan Puritan political movement -- The Puritan path to heaven -- Taming Puritanism -- The lure of the Atlantic -- Reformations, 1630-1660: John Cotton comes to Massachusetts -- Protestant Reformation and counter-Reformation in the 1630s -- A miraculous year goes bad -- The wobbly rise and precipitous collapse of Presbyterian England -- Shaking out antichrist in the 1650s -- Consolidating reformation in New England -- Old England's corruptions come to New England -- Waban's reformation -- Twilight, 1660-1689: English Puritanism under persecution -- English Puritanism goes public again -- Religious pluralism comes to Puritan New England -- New England's reformations come of age -- New England's Puritan autonomy ends -- Endings, 1689-1690s: Hopes raised and dashed -- The final parting of the ways for English Puritans -- A godly massacre of the innocents in post-Puritan Massachusetts.

Begun in the mid-sixteenth century by Protestant nonconformists keen to reform England's church and society while saving their own souls, the puritan movement was a major catalyst in the great cultural changes that transformed the early modern world. Providing a uniquely broad transatlantic perspective, this groundbreaking volume traces puritanism's tumultuous history from its initial attempts to reshape the Church of England to its establishment of godly republics in both England and America and its demise at the end of the seventeenth century. Shedding new light on puritans whose impact was far-reaching as well as on those who left only limited traces behind them, Michael Winship delineates puritanism's triumphs and tribulations and shows how the puritan project of creating reformed churches working closely with intolerant godly governments evolved and broke down over time in response to changing geographical, political, and religious exigencies.