James A. Warren is a writer and former visiting scholar in the American Studies Department at Brown University. A regular contributor to The Daily Beast, Warren is the author of God, War, and Providence; Giap: The General Who Defeated America in Vietnam; and American Spartans: The United States Marines: A Combat History from Iwo Jima to Iraq, among other books. His articles have appeared in MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, Vietnam Magazine, Society, and The Providence Journal. For many years Warren was an acquisitions editor in the fields of history, religion, and ethnic studies at Columbia University Press. Educated at Brown, he lives in Saunderstown, Rhode Island.
“Warren’s well-written monograph contains a great deal of insight
into the tactics of war on the frontier.” —Library Journal
“In the long and sorrowful history of Native American resistance to
white encroachment, no episode raises more perplexing questions
than that in which the Narragansett tribe forged a
seventeenth-century alliance with the white religious dissidents of
Rhode Island for their mutual protection against New England’s
Puritans…A riveting historical validation of emancipatory impulses
frustrated in their own time.” —Booklist, starred review
“Warren distinguishes himself by trying to understand all the
motives of the principal players in this sad, sanguinary
drama….There are several simultaneous stories going on, and the
author handles them all deftly.” —Kirkus Reviews
“An engaging history of the long struggle between the Puritan
oligarchy and New England's most important Indian tribe, in which
Roger Williams, America’s first advocate of religious freedom,
played a vital role. Williams established Rhode Island as a refuge
from Puritan domination, and a place where Indian and English
settlers could live side by side, in peace. If you want to
know about the origins of religious diversity and cultural
pluralism in America, read this compelling book.” —Chester Gillis,
Professor of Theology, Georgetown University
“A noted military historian trains his critical sights on Puritan
New England, while putting up a staunch defense of Roger Williams,
Rhode Island, and the Narragansett Indians. In this
compelling story, James Warren portrays Williams as a man of peace
in violent times, an intellectual whose ideas were often strikingly
modern. Now recognized as a champion of religious liberty and
the separation of church and state, Williams also earns Warren’s
praise for his pioneering ethnographic research, his fair treatment
of Native Americans, and his deft maneuvering to assure the
survival of a tiny but tolerant colony.” —Professor Patrick M.
Malone, Brown University, author of The Skulking Way of
War
“In God, War, and Providence, James Warren accomplishes many
tasks: he adds to the far too brief historiography of the small,
radical colony that helped to shape the philosophical underpinnings
of this nation; he renders comprehensible the complex relationships
of 17th century religious dissenters and Native Americans; and he
exposes his readers to the challenges of researching the Colonial
Era—a scant and untrustworthy written record and even fewer records
that capture the Native American perspective. And all the
while he does this is an engaging and enjoyable narrative that is a
pleasure to read.” — C. Morgan Grefe, PhD, Executive Director,
Rhode Island Historical Society
Ask a Question About this Product More... |