The Worlds of William Penn

Description

William Penn was an instrumental and controversial figure in the early modern transatlantic world, known both as a leader in the movement for religious toleration in England and as a founder of two American colonies, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. As such, his career was marked by controversy and contention in both England and America. This volume looks at William Penn with fresh eyes, bringing together scholars from a range of disciplines to assess his multifaceted life and career. Contributors analyze the worlds that shaped Penn and the worlds that he shaped: Irish, English, American, Quaker, and imperial. The eighteen chapters in The Worlds of William Penn shed critical new light on Penn’s life and legacy, examining his early and often-overlooked time in Ireland; the literary, political, and theological legacies of his public career during the Restoration and after the 1688 Revolution; his role as proprietor of Pennsylvania; his religious leadership in the Quaker movement, and as a loyal lieutenant to George Fox, and his important role in the broader British imperial project. Coinciding with the 300th anniversary of Penn’s death the time is right for this examination of Penn’s importance both in his own time and to the ongoing campaign for political and religious liberty Title Page Copyright Contents Introduction: William Penn and His Worlds Part I: Materials, History, Memory 1. The Elusive Body of William Penn 2. Where William Penn Slept (and Why It Matters) 3. Beyond the Bounds: Exploitation and Empire in the First Map of Pennsylvania Part II: Irish Worlds 4. William Penn, William Petty, and Surveying: The Irish Connection 5. The Irish Worlds of William Penn: Culture, Conflict, and Connections 6. The Roads to and from Cork: The Irish Origins of William Penn’s Theory of Religious Toleration Part III: Restoration Worlds 7. New Worlds and Holy Experiments in the Restoration Literature of Milton, Bunyan, and Penn 8. William Penn and James II 9. William Penn, German Pietist(?) Part IV: American Worlds 10. “Rancontyn Marenit”: Lenape Peacemaking before William Penn 11. William Penn, John Winthrop, and Colonial Political Science 12. Religion and Revolution in New England: 1689 Part V: Quaker Worlds 13. William Penn as Preface Writer, Historian, and Controversialist 14. Quakers, Puritans, and the Problem of Godly Loyalty in the Early Restoration 15. From Puritan to Quaker: Mary Dyer and Puritan–Quaker Conversion in the Seventeenth-Century Atlantic Part VI: Imperial Worlds 16. Pennsylvania’s Religious Freedom in Comparative Colonial Context 17. William Penn and Security Communities: A Career 18. William Penn’s Imperial Landscape: Improvement, Political Economy, and Colonial Agriculture in the Pennsylvania Project Acknowledgments Notes on Contributors Index