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"Perhaps the most penetrating examination yet published of 'the sources of our obsessive concern with the meaning of America.'"--Jack P. Greene, History

"The most valuable achievement in colonial American literature since the best work of Perry Miller."--David Levin, William and Mary Quarterly

"A brave and brilliant book...that is the most significant and far-reaching contribution to the theory of American literature in recent years."--Alan Trachtenberg, Partisan Review

"A study which reaches with daring ease from the Bible and Augustine to Emerson and Whitman... [and] offers an agenda for the next several decades of scholarly work on colonial religious studies."--John F. Wilson, Theology Today

"[Bercovitch] casts a dazzling light on the myth of America and the conundrums of individuality and community that are the core of the American character."--Michael Zuckerman, Early American Literature