A Place Called Paradise: Culture and Community in Northampton, Massachusetts, 1654-2004
This is local history at its best. These insightful and readable essays explore central themes of American history as they played out in a single remarkable community. Since its founding 350 years ago, Northampton has seen it all -- seventeenth-century witchcraft trials; eighteenth-century revivalism and revolution; nineteenth-century Romanticism, reform, and commerce; twentieth-century feminism and Cold War homophobia. The next-best-thing to living in Northampton is reading this wonderful volume.(Paul S. Boyer, editor, The Oxford Companion to United States History)Historic Northampton deserves high praise for bringing together such a fine collection of essays. What a smart way to celebrate a 350th anniversary! Serious history is the best kind of monument.(Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Phillips Professor of Early American History, Harvard University)A Place Called Paradise is a wonderful introduction to the historical life of Northampton, Massachusetts, one of the most extraordinary places in the Atlantic world, and a place which has inspired some of the most outstanding historical writing of the past decades.(Emma Rothschild, University of Cambridge and Harvard University)A Place Called Paradise fully vindicates Buckley's insistence that 'it is at the local level where history happens and where historians can see larger forces at work.' Other towns and communities facing milestone anniversaries should consider emulating Historic Northampton's example; while not every locality can be a 'paradise,' surely Northampton is not unique in possessing fascinating stories that illustrate the American experience.(Len TraversThe New England Quarterly)