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Reviews
| The Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Edwards, edited by Stephen J. Stein. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 398 pages. $27.99, paper.
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| For many of us who teach the United States history survey course, Jonathan Edwards, the eighteenth-century New England minister, revivalist, and theologian, still merits a brief mention in the stories we tell our students about early America. As long as the First Great Awakening remains part of our coverage, Edwards will have a place in our narratives. In this book, the most recent volume in the Cambridge Companion to Religion series, Stephen J. Stein has gathered an impressive group of scholars, many who have edited volumes in Yale's voluminous Works of Jonathan Edwards, to provide an excellent overview of Edwards's life and thought. Stein's collection will quickly become the standard introduction to this influential eighteenth-century figure. It should find a place on the bookshelf of anyone who teaches early American history. |
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The Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Edwards is divided into three parts. Part One, "Edwards's Life and Context," begins with a biographical sketch by George M. Marsden, author of the most recent Edwards biography. Marsden's essay serves as a very nice summary of Edward's life and career for those who do not have the time or inclination to read his 640-page award-winning biography. Marsden is followed by Kenneth P. Minkema, Executive Editor of the Works of Jonathan Edwards Project at Yale, who provides an introduction to Edwards's personal writings. David D. Hall and Avihu Zakai have written essays on New En gland Puritanism and The Age of the Enlightenment that are essential for understanding the cultural and intellectual milieu in which Edwards lived. Part Two, "Edwards's Roles and Achievements," includes essays on Edwards as a preacher, revivalist, theologian, philosopher, biblical exegete, and missionary. Of particular note for American historians is Harry S. Stout's essay on Edwards's role in the evangelical revival known as the First Great Awakening and E. Brooks Holifield's informative overview of Edwards's theology. Since Edwards usually makes an appearance in the United History survey course as a promoter of evangelical revival and a theological opponent of the Enlightenment, the essays of Stout and Holifield will be most useful to teachers. Rachel M. Wheeler's piece on Edwards's stint as a missionary to the Indians of Stockbridge, Massachusetts sheds light on an often neglected dimension of the minister's career. |
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Most of the essays in the first two parts of the book cover well-worn ground in Edwards's studies, but Part Three, "Edwards's Legacy and Reputation," includes six fascinating essays on the way that Edwards has been remembered by historians. Douglas A. Sweeney's essay traces the manner in which Edwards has been used by nineteenth- and twentieth-century evangelicals. Philip F. Gura offers a survey of Edwards and the American literary canon, including the 1930s resurgence of interest in his writings spearheaded by the work of Perry Miller. The best essay in this section, and perhaps in the entire book, is Ava Chamberlain's article chronicling Edwards's views on race, gender, and class. |
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Scholars of Jonathan Edwards or early American religion will not find much new in this book, but that is not the purpose of the volume. The purpose is to provide a handy and accessible introduction to Edwards for graduate students (I wish this book had been available when I took my comprehensive examinations!) and college and high school teachers who want to learn more about this important figure. It also offers a useful guide to Edwards for scholars of early America or those who teach courses on colonial America who may not specialize in matters religious. The essays are even in quality, a rare feat these days in edited volumes, and teachers who want to learn about a particular dimension of Edwards's life or thought can easily find the information that they need. The only frustrating part of the book, which is somewhat inevitable in a multi-authored work like this one, is the overlapping of coverage in the essays. While the essays provide self-contained studies of the various dimensions of Edwards's career, nearly all of them cover ground treaded in other essays. The articles in The Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Edwards are a bit sophisticated for most undergraduates, but it makes for a nice reader in an upper-division course in early American history or American religious history. In the end, this collection is more valuable to the instructor than the student, but this does not mean that advanced undergraduates, graduate students, or theological students will not find it useful. |
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| Messiah College, Grantham, Pennsylvania |
John Fea |
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