From maritime Canada to the Carolina backcountry, New England to the Illinois prairies, Protestants in British North America and the new United States influenced by the evangelical awakenings of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were known as the "people called New Lights." This occasional blog features news, reviews, and research notes, along with dispatches from the archives and edited transcriptions of notable, obscure, and downright quirky manuscripts chronicling the religious beliefs, practices, and experiences of the people called New Lights from 1730 to 1850.
Christopher Grasso’s elegant new monograph, Skepticism and Faith: From the Revolution to the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), is a towering achievement—a sweeping historical narrative told through a fascinating cast of characters. A must read for anyone interested in the religious history of the early American republic! Check out my review in Early American Literature 55 (2020): 273–276.