Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul

September 1, 2011

At a time when folks were roundly debating the relationship between government and God, as well as government and the individual, Roger Williams proposed the separation of church and state and linked religious freedom to individual liberty. Then he practiced what he was preaching by setting up his own government in the wilderness (the colony of Providence Plantation). Author of best-selling prize winner The Great Influenza, Barry should ably articulate Williams's ideas and their lasting importance. Not just for history majors.

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Starred review from January 1, 2012
Barry traces American separation of church and state back to earliest colonial days, when John Winthrop (15881649), first governor of Massachusetts Bay, and Roger Williams (160383), founder of Rhode Island, argued over whether government should enforce religious conformity, a dispute that eventuated inbesides such more immediately consequential things as banishment (and worse) for dissenters from colonial theocraciesWilliams' written formulation of the concept Jefferson boiled down to wall of separation between church and state. Barry likes to get to the roots of his subjects, so he delves farther back about Williams, in particular, to the inspiration he took from his patron Edward Coke, England's greatest jurist, and Coke's bitter rival in government, Sir Francis Bacon. From Coke, Williams garnered faith in the law and due process as well as, through Coke's battles with James I and Charles I, the importance of maintaining the rights of Englishmen (Coke's concept) against divine-right regimes, whether under king or, as in Massachusetts Bay, council. From Bacon, Williams imbibed a penchant for real-world (scientific) testing of beliefs (hypotheses) that led him to launch Rhode Island. Winthrop and Williams were on cordial terms almost to the former's death, which is just one fascinating strand in the swath of history Barry brings to urgent life with the same focused intelligence that distinguished his The Great Influenza (2004).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)