The Indian Great Awakening

Reviews / Votes

The Indian Great Awakening is a helpful foray into the realm of Colonial social history. Readers will gain new insight and perspective that will challenge Whiggish predispositions. * Joseph T. Cochran, Themelios * The history of religious engagement and the spectrum of religious responses presented in The Indian Great Awakening suggest a way to explore Native American perseverance and actions during a period of American history where Indian actors have largely been omitted. Fisher offers evidence of Native presence and elucidates public contestations over Native rights and religions, highlighting the exclusion of Native Americans from earlier national histories. It is my hope that his re-engagement with the history of the Great Awakening from the perspective of Native Americans will serve as an inspiring model and challenge other contemporary scholars to address similar oversights in the historical record. * Michael Gueno, Marginalia Review of Books * Thoroughly researched, clearly written, and convincingly argued. ... This book helps us to see more clearly a host of vital dimensions of Native religious engagement with Christianity including the Indian impulses to decide for themselves if how, when, where, and why the claims of Christ would bear on their lives, to control if possible the churches and schools they frequented, and to maintain substantial elements of their cultural heritage when they chose to make Christianity their own. Together those points underscore Native agency, hopes for cultural sovereignty, and quests for community survival, all themes well worth further consideration as other scholars continue to explore the history of Indian Christianization in early America. * Richard W. Pointer, Fides et Historia * A fine exemplar of the maturation of the 'new Indian history,' which places Native peoples at the center of the American past. * Nick Griffiths, William and Mary Quarterly * The Indian Great Awakening reminds us that religious engagement is both complex and personal. By examining the varied lived experiences of many Native Americans throughout southeastern New England, Fisher has reshaped our understanding of the ways in which these complex people navigated the intersections of race and religion in early America, showing clearly that their varied awakenings are no interpretive ficitions. * Common-Place * Fisher presents significantly more sophisticated interpretations of religious change that emphasize process, contingency, and lived experience over simple notions of conversion. * Tracy Neal Leavelle, Early American Literature * Rethinking the Scottish Revolution is a detailed and accomplished account of the complex governance of Scotland, and is an invaluable addition to the historiography of the 17th century. * Charlotte Young, Parliamentary History *