“This revelatory and exhilarating and funny book not only tells us of the Beat generation, but of a time when we as individuals felt truly free. It is as fresh and pertinent as the latest scholarly history only far more entertaining.”—Studs Terkel

“The journal of the Quaker mystic and abolitionist John Woolman has never been out of print since 1774, when it was first published. Along with Woolman’s pamphlets and speeches, the journal was instrumental in persuading the Society of Friends to give up owning slaves. In this meditative biography, Slaughter provides sensitive readings of Woolman’s writings in order to draw a picture of a ‘prophetic Old Testament radical’ who practiced a patient and methodical mode of activism. Woolman balanced a workman’s life in New Jersey with visits to Indian tribes and to Friends’ meetings in other states, preaching a doctrine of asceticism and human perfectibility.”—The New Yorker

Historians have no record of what the people who lived in medieval Europe between 1100-1500 did or did not believe regarding their Christian faith. This penetrating study sifts through the traces of evidence left across Europe to assemble a more complete picture. While religion in medieval Europe was a central part of people's lives and affected even the most mundane aspects of everyday existance, the period was far from uniform as the "Age of Faith." By focusing on lay people, this comprehensive analysis unlocks the multiple meanings of religion, asking how it functioned and what effect it had on the population, revealing the meanings and struggles that lay behind the misleading, commonly held myth of ubiquitous religious life in medieval Europe.

"In an engaging biography, Miller shows that even though the flag story is riddled with improbabilities, the life of the woman who came to be known as Betsy Ross is worth recovering . . . Through skillful use of small details, Miller sustains her repeated assertion that the future Betsy Ross was often 'only a handshake away' from the men who made the Revolution . . . Miller's admiring biography will warm the hearts of those who love the Betsy Ross legend. It may also convince skeptics (Miller refers to them as 'naysayers') that there is something in the flag stories worth considering."—Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, The New York Times

“In this major study, Pugliese interweaves vivid anecdote, insightful commentary, and historical fact to produce a life story of the utmost power and consequence.”—Millicent Marcus, Chair of the Department of Italian Language and Literature, Yale University

"A work of revisionism that holds most other studies up to close scrutiny, this is an important book and one that demands careful reading. Cohn's encyclopedic and polyglot command of the secondary sources, combined with the sheer volume of records that he has scoured for his evidence, presents a dense and detailed read . . . A serious revisionist study . . . essential reading for any scholar whose work touches on the plague or the Renaissance."—History: Reviews of New Books

"'Modern politics is a chapter in the history of religion,' Gray, a British philosopher, insists in this outspoken attack on utopianism and the ‘faith-based violence’ it has inspired. History, Gray writes, offers no new dawns or sharp breaks, and, from the French Revolution to the war on terror, he is as critical of the humanist belief in progress as of the ‘belligerent optimism’ of neoconservatives. Sketching the roots of utopianism, he emphasizes the similarities between seemingly disparate movements: radical Islam, he suggests, might best be thought of as ‘Islamo-Jacobinism.’ Taking the Iraq war as an object lesson, he argues for an acknowledgment that the ‘local pieties of Atlantic democracy’ are not the only way to govern. Gray’s writing has a bracing clarity."—The New Yorker