Jonathan Edwards

George Marsden’s biography of Jonathan Edwards is the standard scholarly life of the Puritan theologian, philosopher, and revival preacher. Edwards is one of the most important figures in American religious and intellectual history, and Marsden’s book treats him with the depth the subject requires.

The book covers Edwards’s New England childhood, his Yale education, his pastoral work in Northampton, the controversies that led to his dismissal from that pulpit, his missionary work among the Mahican and Mohawk peoples at Stockbridge, and his brief presidency of Princeton before his death from a smallpox inoculation.

Marsden takes Edwards’s theology seriously rather than treating it as a curiosity. The intellectual sections are demanding but rewarding.

This is the book to read on Edwards if you want one comprehensive treatment. Marsden won the Bancroft Prize for it. For shorter introductions, Edwards’s own Personal Narrative or his sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God are accessible primary sources.