The Life of the Mind in America: From the Revolution to the Civil War, Books One Through Three

by Perry Miller

"Perry Miller, like all great historians, in Reinhold Niebuhr's words, "was both scientist and artist." That combination is nowhere better seen in his work than in this posthumous work. For years Miller had been engaged in a vast enterprise that would continue the history of American mind begun with his definitive two-volume account of the intellectual life of New England.

From manuscript in progress at his death, virtually two-thirds of the planned first volume of The Life of the Mind in America was found in finished form. It includes 'Book One, The Evangelical Basis', 'Book Two, The Legal Mentality', and 'Book Three, Science: Theoretical and Applied'.

Winner of the 1966 Pulitzer Prize in History, The Life of the Mind in America: From the Revolution to the Civil War is a permanent contribution to American letters.

Contents:
Book I: The Evangelical Bias
Book II: The Legal Mentality
Book III: Science — Theoretical and Applied

Genres: History, American History, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Civil War

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

Perry Gilbert Eddy Miller was an intellectual historian and Harvard University professor. He was an authority on American Puritanism, and one of the founders of what came to be known as 'American Studies'. Alfred Kazin once referred to him as "the master of American intellectual history."

In his most famous book, The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century (1939), Miller adopted a cultural approach to illuminate the worldview of the Puritans, unlike previous historians who employed psychological and economic explanations of their beliefs and behavior.

At Harvard, he directed numerous PhD dissertations; among his most notable students were historians Bernard Bailyn and Edmund Morgan. Margaret Atwood dedicated her famous book The Handmaid's Tale to Perry Miller. He had been a mentor to her at Harvard.

His major works included:

• (1933) Orthodoxy in Massachusetts, 1630-1650
• (1939) The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century
• (1949) Jonathan Edwards
• (1953) The New England Mind: From Colony to Province
• (1953) Roger Williams: His Contribution to the American Tradition
• (1956) Errand into the Wilderness
• (1956) The American Puritans [editor]
• (1957) The American Transcendentalists, their Prose and Poetry
• (1957) The Raven and the Whale: Poe, Melville and the New York Literary Scene
• (1958) Consciousness in Concord: The Text of Thoreau’s Hitherto “Lost Journal”
• (1961) The Legal Mind in America: from Independence to the Civil War
• (1965) The Life of the Mind in America: From the Revolution to the Civil War

Reviews

[Bob]

Summary: The first three books of an intellectual history of the influences that shaped the American mind.

American intellectual historian Perry Miller is most famous for his work on New England intellectual history, particularly that of the Puritans. In the year of his death (1963), Miller proposed to his publisher an ambitious project under the title of this book. It was a proposal consisting of ten books including a Prologue:

Prologue: The Sublime in America
Book I: The Evangelical Basis
Book II The Legal Mentality
Book III: Tension: Technology and Science
Book IV: The Battlefield of Democracy: education
Book V: Freedom and Association: Political Economy and Association
Book VI: Philosophy
Book VII: Theology
Book VIII: Nature
Book IX: The Self

Tragically, Miller was an alcoholic, struggling to recover until the assassination of John F. Kennedy, after which he basically drank himself to death, passing on December 10 of that year. He had completed only the first two books, and an outlined plan for the third. The Prologue was never written, which would have been interesting. His wife Elizabeth published his work posthumously, in 1965. It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in History in 1966. We are left thinking, “If only…”

Book I explore the influence of revivalism in America. Most significant in this section is Miller’s account of how revivalism undermined the sectarian character of early American Protestantism, contributing both to a common evangelical mind and to the separation of church and state. A corollary to the latter is the rise of the voluntary spirit in American Christianity. Finally he traces the movement of revivals from rural settings like Cane Ridge to the urban setting of New York City in 1858 on the eve of the Civil War.

Book II then traces the parallel development of law. In this case, Miller offers an account that moves from a common sense approach and a reliance upon English common law to an increasing codification of civil and criminal law. In addition, he traces that transformation of the profession from reading Blackstone under an attorney’s tutelage to the rise of legal education. The growth of the nation exposed the inadequacies and contradictions in the English traditions of common law, equity, and civil law. Ultimately, this led to codification efforts.

Finally, Miller only completed chapter one of Book III. Above all, in this section, Miller traces out the transition of science from a contemplative study of the handiwork of God to the technological advances of the time. But what happens to God? Advances in geology anticipate the Darwinian controversies to follow. However we also glimpse a shift of finding the sublime in heavenly glories to the experience of technological wonders.

Although the work is dense, one senses the breadth of Miller’s own intellectual reach. It would have been fascinating to see Miller parse out his understanding of the American quest for the sublime in the other projected books. However, I wonder if this might have underscored the contradictions inherent in the tensions with which our nation has struggled. In addition, Miller’s decision to lead with the significance of revivals is striking. He stands apart from the intellectual squeamishness to deal with the importance of religion in the American experience, from which many are only now awakening. Thus, it doesn’t surprise me to find the book still in print sixty years after publication.

[Kevin Spicer]

I'm a big fan of early american history and this is a fascinating side of early American history that I've never read before. Perry Miller combs through the writings of people mostly forgotten by time to try to understand what they thought they were doing, what their self conception was, what the story they told themselves about their work, the tensions, the way their minds were trying to anticipate and solve problems that threatened this self conception, their profession, and ultimately this thing called a nation that they understood they were building and whose every stone chiseled, every edifice constructed would either serve to strengthen its foundations or hasten its collapse. Its a history of the writings of influential but mostly forgotten people; revival preachers like Charles Grandison Finney, English judges, like William Blackstone, and Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, and early writings on Technology and the use and role of science.

I'm woefully unlearned on this stuff but it seems almost like the opposite of a materialist history which I think is instructive in its own way. Like what emerges from this story is the sense of how history paves the way for philosophy, like there were all of these intellectual problems that people were furiously trying to solve but America's own sense of itself, its pragmatism, its exceedingly commercial spirit, and the speed and fury with which it wanted to settle the continent kept it from ever staying still long enough to take seriously the writings of a Thoreau or an Emerson.

Really good book for only being like 1/4 done, would have been an incredible work if he had finished it.

[B]

ironically, I would not use the word "SUBLIME" to describe this book. It's not paradigm-redefining but paradigm-creating. I suspect most folks, like your humble reader, did not give much thought to the culture of the early 18th century beyond slavery and Jackson and your middle-school topics.

this is some well-written, well-researched work that gives some serious insight.

one can't help but wonder what ideas would jave coalesced in Miller's head had he as actually drafted the nine planned books. We're much poorer for not having that.

[Miriam]

To truly appreciate this book, you already need to have a fundamental understanding of the early American churches and politicians. For those of us without this knowledge, the book provides a tantalizing glimpse into Miller's amazing ability to assimilate diverse material. Amazingly, the book either explains the foundations for current debate or demonstrates that they are certainly not new.