CONTENTS -- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS -- PREFACE -- ONE: The Legacy, Birth, and Education of a Puritan [1639-1661] -- "P" for Puritan -- Migration as God's Will -- A Gathering of Visible Saints -- Childhood -- Harvard College and Boston -- Life in Boston -- England: the Revolution that Failed -- TWO: The Struggle for Identity [1661-1672] -- Marriage and Family -- Soldier of the Lord -- Half-Way Covenant -- North Church -- Obstinate and Turbulent Anabaptists -- A Preacher's Life -- Israel's Salvation -- His Father's Death -- The Biography of His Father: an Act of Atonement -- Devastation of these Churches -- THREE: God's Agent on Earth [1672-1676] -- A Growing Family -- Jeremiad -- Chariots of War -- God's Punishment -- Mather versus William Hubbard -- Mather's History of the War -- FOUR: Spiritual Leadership [1676-1680] -- The Danger of Apostasy: a Challenge to the Magistrates -- The Boston Press and the Power of the Printed Word -- Books as Instruments -- Smallpox: a Warning From a Stern God -- Reforming Synod -- FIVE: New Worlds of Science and Hope [1680-1686] -- Challenges From Right and Left -- John Foster: Astronomer and Printer -- Puritan as Scientist -- The Natural Order and God -- Cotton Mather -- Confident Years -- SIX: Dominion of New England [1684-1688] -- Fissures in Puritan Society -- End of Independence -- Mather and the Politics of Independence -- Treason or a Forgery? -- Popular Culture in Puritan Boston -- President Pro Tempore of Harvard College -- Dominion of New England -- SEVEN: Representing Massachusetts in London [1688-1691] -- The Puritan and the Stuart King -- The Death of a Child -- Revolution and a Transfer of Power -- Parliament or Whitehall? -- Revolt in the Colonies -- Massachusetts's Charges Against Andros and Dudley -- Stalemate -- Heads of Agreement: Dissenters Reconciled -- The New Charter.

EIGHT: Massachusetts Under the New Charter [1692-1702] -- Witchcraft and Cases of Conscience in Salem -- Politics Under the New Charter -- The Spiritual World and the Millennium -- The Struggle Over a Charter for Harvard -- Boston at the Century's End -- Defying the Platform: the Brattle Street Manifesto, 1699 -- NINE: The Last Puritan [1703-1723] -- Harvard Lost -- Joseph Dudley: Imperial Governor -- An Aging Indian Commissioner -- Colman, Stoddard, and the Presbyterian Movement -- Joseph Dudley and the Crisis of 1707 -- Published Sermons, 1703-1712 -- Cosmopolitan Boston in the Eighteenth Century -- Family and Church -- Church Establishment -- Published Sermons, 1715-1720 -- The End of Time -- NOTES -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- INDEX -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y.