National Book Award Non Fiction Winner
The Life of the Mind in America
by Perry Miller
Summary
An unfinished but ambitious intellectual history of the early American republic, examining how revivalist religion, evolving legal thought, and the romantic idea of the sublime competed to shape national self-understanding. Drawing on sermons, court opinions, and literary texts, Miller treats lawyers, theologians, and writers as participants in a single cultural argument. Assembled posthumously from his manuscripts, it stands as the capstone of his pioneering work on American Puritan and post-Puritan thought.
”
Historical Context & Significance
Miller died before finishing the book; his wife and colleagues compiled his notes into this win, which represents the pinnacle of "New England" intellectual history.