Peaceable Kingdoms: New England Towns in the Eighteenth Century

“This remarkable book seeks to lay out the human reality of community life in the original New England towns. Based on thorough research, shaped by an imagination that is both historical and anthropological, and lightly and lucidly written, Peaceable Kingdoms adds something new to American social history, and in its analysis of ‘consensual communalism’ throws new light on the general problem of community pressures to conformity.” —Bernard Bailyn, Harvard University