Puritans at Play: Leisure and Recreation in Colonial New England / Edition 1

by Bruce C. Daniels

Overview

'It is rare for a book to be both erudite and amusing at the same time, and this book has succeeded. It has changed the common but unacceptable image of the Puritans as dull, solemn, melancholy misanthropes' - Horton Davies, author of The Worship of the American Puritans For over four centuries, 'puritan' has been a synonym for dour, joyless, and repressed. In Puritans at Play, Bruce Daniels reappraises the accuracy of this grim portrait by examining leisure and recreation in colonial and revolutionary New England. Chapters on music, dinner parties, dancing, sex, alcohol, taverns, and sports are presented in a lively style making this book as entertaining as it is illuminating.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312161248
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan US
Publication date:	09/11/1996
Edition description:	1996
Pages:	271
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.03(d)

About the Author

Bruce C. Daniels, Professor of History at Texas Tech University, is a specialist on colonial and Revolutionary New England and on international views of American history. He is a past president of the Canadian Association for American Studies and in the spring of 2005 was the Nikolai Sivachev Distinguished Fulbright Chair at Moscow State University

Table of Contents

Introduction: Puritanism, Play, and American Culture - DID PURITANS LIKE FUN? - Sober Mirth and Pleasant Poisons: Historians, Puritan Ambivalence, and the Concept of Pleasure in Early New England - INTELLECTUAL AND CULTURAL ENTERTAINMENT - Quiet Times: Reading for Pleasure and Profit - Music and Theater Struggle for Legitimacy - GATHERING TOGETHER - Congregational Socializing: Gathering Together at the Meetinghouse - Civic Socializing: Parties for the Common Good - MEN AND WOMEN FROLIC TOGETHER - Frolics for Fun: Dances, Weddings, and Dinner Parties - The Progress of Romance: Sex and Courtship - Drinking and Socializing: Alcohol, Taverns, and Alehouse Culture - SPECIAL OPPORTUNITIES AND BARRIERS - Men Frolic by Themselves: Sport and Games in a Male Culture - The Fragmentation of Social Experience: Age, Gender, Location, and Social Class - PURITANS, REVOLUTIONARIES AND AMERICANS - The Puritan Legacy: The National Inheritance - Endnotes - Index