Enthusiasm Described and Decried: The Great Awakening as Interpretative Fiction

Abstract

In last half century, Great Awakening has assumed major role in explaining political and social evolution of prerevolutionary American society. Historians have argued, variously, that Awakening severed intellectual and philosophical connections between America and Europe (Perry Miller), that it was major vehicle of early lower-class protest (John C. Miller, Rhys Isaac, and Gary B. Nash), that it was means by which New England Puritans became Yankees (Richard L. Bushman), that it was first intercolonial movement to stir the people of several colonies on matter of common emotional concern (Richard Hofstadter following William Warren Sweet), or that it involved a rebirth of localistic impulse (Kenneth Lockridge) *1 American historians also have increasingly linked Awakening directly to Revolution. Alan Heimert has tagged it as source of Calvinist political ideology that irretrievably shaped eighteenth-century American society and Revolution it produced. Harry S. Stout has argued that Awakening stimulated new system of mass communications that increased colonists' political awareness and reduced their deference to elite groups prior to Revolution. Isaac and Nash have described Awakening as source of simpler, non-Calvinist protest rhetoric that reinforced revolutionary ideology in disparate places, among them Virginia and northern