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The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop

Edmund S. Morgan

The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop

Edmund S. Morgan

  • 52-page comprehensive Study Guide
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The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop Essay Topics

1.

How does Morgan use Winthrop as a case study for what Morgan regards as effective leadership? Which qualities does Morgan regard as crucial or detrimental in a leader, and why?

2.

Winthrop considered his immigration to America to be a positive engagement with the world rather than the kind of withdrawal advocated by separatists. How convincing are his arguments that he was not acting like a separatist? In what ways did his leadership of the colony reinforce, or diverge from, this commitment to engagement?

3.

Morgan insists that historians should understand people’s motivations within the context of their own time periods rather than imposing modern concepts on them. How do Winthrop’s ideals of democracy, separation of church and state, and/or religious freedom differ from 21st-century conceptions? In what ways, if any, are they similar?

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