New Biography of Roger Williams Reviewed

In the NY Times Sunday Book Review section Joyce E. Chaplin, James Duncan Phillips professor of history at Harvard, reviews Roger Williams and the Creation of the Amercian Soul - Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty by John M. Barry. Williams, who sought a “hedge or wall of Separation between the Garden of the Church and the Wildernes of the world,” played an enormously important role in defending liberty of conscience. Persecuted on both sides of the Atlantic, Williams bravely fought against governmental assaults on freedom of belief. In her review, Professor Chaplin notes that this new biography neglects one especially important element of Williams’ work, his insistence that rights and respect should not be reserved only for European settlers but were also entitlements of the Indians, the colonies’ original inhabitants.

JFB