John Witherspoon's American Revolution

Gideon Mailer is associate professor of history at the University of Minnesota, Duluth.
For more information about Gideon Mailer, visit the Author Page.

“Readers interested in placing one of the Garden State's favorite sons in a transatlantic world of ideas will not find a better book about the only minister to sigh the Declaration of Independence.”--New Jersey Studies

“A landmark in Scottish-American historiography.”--Eighteenth-Century Scotland

“This thoroughly researched work is best suited for scholars of Enlightenment history and the American Revolution.”--Library Journal

“Thoroughly researched. . . . [A] detailed investigation. Recommended.”--Choice

"Mailer does more than urge scholars to look at Witherspoon anew; he makes a compelling case for them to use Witherspoon's experience as a lens through which to more accurately gauge the interplay of religious conflict and Enlightenment philosophy in the founding of the United States."—American Historical Review

“Mailer’s tour de force of research has produced a cornucopia of insights into a key but underappreciated leader of the eighteenth-century Atlantic world. With careful probing of Witherspoon’s Scottish career and painstaking examination of his central role in the colonial break from Britain, Mailer corrects what other historians, including myself, have written about this influential minister, educator, and public servant. A special contribution is Mailer’s demonstration that Witherspoon, although with some ambiguity, sustained foundational evangelical convictions in his career on both sides of the Atlantic.”—Mark A. Noll, University of Notre Dame

Visit the author's website at www.gideonmailer.com.