William Bradford's Books

"Meticulously researched and eloquently argued... This lovingly fashioned biography of the first American history book affirms the fundamental responsibilities of good history writing."

"The extraordinary care with which Anderson has crafted his own book can be seen as a kind of homage to its subject... William Bradford's Books is in many ways an unexpectedly rewarding read and a major contribution to early American studies. It is a text that literary critics and historians are both likely to engage with and to rely on for a long time to come and that is poised to change forever how Of Plimmoth Plantation is read and taught."

"A model of close reading based on strategies that few if any early Americanists have employed."

"A substantial analysis of the form and content of Bradford's history of Plymouth studied against the era's reading practices, publishing conventions, and scriptural interpretations... By making sense of Bradford's manuscript, Anderson brings Bradford himself closer."

"The publication of Douglas Anderson's fine book seems, well, providential, and one hopes that it finds the audience that it so richly deserves."

"Anderson himself has written a book that presents Bradford's work in equally splendid and unexpected ways, restoring complexity and immediacy to a volume that we thought we knew all along... It is a rare accomplishment to bring readers back to a text as canonical as Of Plimmouth Plantation in a new way."

"Through Anderson's rich and multifaceted portrait... the reader ultimately re-experiences the full meaning of Bradford's attempt to capture the Puritan experience in the New World."

"Rarely can a scholar so thoroughly resituate such a foundational work as William Bradford's history as Anderson does here."

"Anderson's skilled and subtle take on a classic text and its contexts reconstructs our image of Bradford's mental world. Catching the ebb tide of postmodernism, this keen work furnishes a model for future literary-historical scholarship."