The Puritan Origins of American Patriotism

About this book

How the Puritans belief in a providential mission led to a uniquely American form of patriotism In this absorbing book George McKenna ranges across the entire panorama of American history to track the development of American patriotism. That patriotismshaped by Reformation Protestantism and imbued with the American Puritan belief in a providential errandhas evolved over 350 years and influenced American political culture in both positive and negative ways McKenna shows. The germ of the patriotism an activist theology that stressed collective rather than individual salvation began in the late 1630s in New England and traveled across the continent eventually becoming a national phenomenon. Today American patriotism still reflects its origins in the seventeenth century. By encouraging cohesion in a nation of diverse peoples and inspiring social reform American patriotism has sometimes been a force for good. But the book also uncovers a darker side of the nations patriotisma prejudice against the South in the nineteenth century for example and a tendency toward nativism and anti-Catholicism. Ironically a great reversal has occurred and today the most fervent believers in the Puritan narrative are the former outsidersCatholics and Southerners. McKenna offers an interesting new perspective on patriotisms role throughout American history and he concludes with trenchant thoughts on its role in the post-9/11 era.