1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910815039303321

Autore

Valeri Mark R

Titolo

Heavenly merchandize [[electronic resource] ] : how religion shaped commerce in Puritan America / / Mark Valeri

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Princeton, : Princeton University Press, c2010

ISBN

1-282-56920-1

9786612569203

1-4008-3499-6

Edizione

[Core Textbook]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (354 p.)

Disciplina

261.8/5097409032

Soggetti

Puritans - Doctrines - History - 17th century

Puritans - Doctrines - History - 18th century

Puritans - Influence

Business - Religious aspects - Christianity

United States Religion To 1800

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Preface -- Introduction. Heavenly Merchandize -- CHAPTER ONE. Robert Keayne's Gift -- CHAPTER TWO. Robert Keayne's Trials -- CHAPTER THREE. John Hull's Accounts -- CHAPTER FOUR. Samuel Sewall's Windows -- CHAPTER FIVE. Hugh Hall's Scheme -- EPILOGUE. Religious Revival -- Notes -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Heavenly Merchandize offers a critical reexamination of religion's role in the creation of a market economy in early America. Focusing on the economic culture of New England, it views commerce through the eyes of four generations of Boston merchants, drawing upon their personal letters, diaries, business records, and sermon notes to reveal how merchants built a modern form of exchange out of profound transitions in the puritan understanding of discipline, providence, and the meaning of New England. Mark Valeri traces the careers of men like Robert Keayne, a London immigrant punished by his church for aggressive business practices; John Hull, a silversmith-turned-trader who helped to establish commercial networks in the West Indies; and Hugh Hall,



one of New England's first slave traders. He explores how Boston ministers reconstituted their moral languages over the course of a century, from a scriptural discourse against many market practices to a providential worldview that justified England's commercial hegemony and legitimated the market as a divine construct. Valeri moves beyond simplistic readings that reduce commercial activity to secular mind-sets, and refutes the popular notion of an inherent affinity between puritanism and capitalism. He shows how changing ideas about what it meant to be pious and puritan informed the business practices of Boston's merchants, who filled their private notebooks with meditations on scripture and the natural order, founded and led churches, and inscribed spiritual reflections in their letters and diaries. Unprecedented in scope and rich with insights, Heavenly Merchandize illuminates the history behind the continuing American dilemma over morality and the marketplace.