The Puritan Origins of the American Self; With a New Preface

"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

Sacvan Bercovitch, Powell M. Cabot Research Professor at Harvard University, is the editor of the eight-volume Cambridge History of American Literature. Among his many books are The American Jeremiad. The Office of the Scarlet Letter and Rites of Assent: The Symbolic Construction of America.