Learning from David Hall

One of my favorite colonial American scholars is David D. Hall, Bartlett Research Professor of New England Church History. While I have learned a lot about colonial American Puritanism from his Faithful Shepherd,  Worlds of Wonder, and A Reforming People, I am most appreciative of his scholarship on the history of the book in colonial America.

His Cultures of Print: Essays in the History of the Book, Ways of Writing: The Practice and Politics of Text-Making in Seventeenth-Century New England, and his co-edited book on The History of the Book in America (see also Amory Hall'sBibliography and the Book Trades: Studies in the Print Culture of Early New England edited by Hall) are incredibly helpful resources for understanding colonial American print culture. Hall reminds us that in order to understand early American culture, we need to be familiar with print culture in the colonies.