Benjamin Franklin, Jonathan Edwards: And The Representation Of American Culture; Editor: Oberg, Barbara B.; Editor: Stout, Harry S.; Hardback; Book

Editor: Oberg, Barbara B.; Editor: Stout, Harry S.
Hardback; Book
240 pages
Published: July 1993
Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019507775X
This item non-returnable. Order may not be canceled.

No colonial figures so completely anticipated the shape of American culture - at once material and spiritual, piously secular and pragmatically sacred - as did Jonathan Edwards and BenjaminFranklin. Commonly labeled Puritan and Yankee respectively, Edwards and Franklin evoke seemingly opposite ideals. Puritan values, embraced by Edwards and sustained in American evangelicalism, focus on God, communal faith, and self-denial. Yankee attributes, espoused by Franklin and sustained in American liberal republicanism, coalesce around the trinity of hard work, independent virtue, and utilitarian self-happiness. For two and a half centuries these alternative emphases and orientations have coexisted in uneasy tension both individually and in American society at large. In contrast tThis is an interdisciplinary collection of comparative essays which looks at aspects of the thought of Edwards and Franklin and considers their places in American culture.