| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 95.1

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 95.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Joseph Priestley and English Unitarianism in America. By J. D. Bowers. (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007. xiv, 282 pp. $50.00, ISBN 987-0-271-02951-9.)

In Manchester before cotton became king, preachers of Unitarian inclination told their congregations that "Religious wisdom hath the promise of temporal prosperity and enjoyment." Religion encourages knowledge and science ("the natural road to preferment and wealth") and both should be cultivated by merchants and manufacturers alike (Ralph Harrison, A Sermon preached at the Dissenting Chapel in Cross-Street, Manchester, March 26th, 1786 on the occasion of the Establishment of an academy in that Town, 1786, pp. 4–7). With such sentiments imbedded in the city's chapel life, perhaps we can better understand why the leading cotton manufacturers were, nearly to a man, Unitarians. J. D. Bowers's book wants to trace the impact of this English variety of Unitarianism in the new American republic, from its appearance in the 1780s to the 1820s. The book's subtext concerns the American career of its hero, Joseph Priestley, exiled in Pennsylvania in 1794, in flight from political persecution in England.

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