David Hall's The Puritans: A Transatlantic History is remarkable piece of scholarship that makes a significant contribution to the study of the early modern British Atlantic world. Hall's survey draws effortlessly from the silos of regional and even new British and Atlantic histories that have tended to obfuscate the connections between individuals, communities, and movements broadly defined as “Puritan.” Foregrounding his study in “theology, institutional church, and the politics of religion” (13), he is able to engage his subject matter within a clear “Reformed tradition or Reformed international” (1). While taking serious account of the cultural, social, and political factors that influenced the people and movements discussed, Hall's approach effectively restores the fundamentality of religion to his subjects. His endeavors are aided by drawing from growing scholarship on Reformed orthodoxies, championed by Richard Muller and others.

The book ostensibly comprises three parts. Chapters 1 and 2 chart the influence of continental Reformed traditions, particularly from the 1550s in England. Noting antipathy for idolatry, the fixed revelation and authority of scripture, high doctrines of the visible church and the need for discipline, as well as the two kingdoms theories typifying continental Reformed theological systems, Hall foreshadows the trajectories and tensions that dominate the rest of the study. He sets out the propensity for strained relationships between churches and civil authorities (particularly monarchs), which largely stemmed from Reformed tensions in the “relationship between the economy of redemption [generally held to be rigorously limited] and the boundaries of the church” (38). As Hall demonstrates, these tensions fueled debates over discipline, church membership, and the best pattern of church government. He cogently explains how the failure of rigorous reform at the national level, coupled with coerced conformity, opened the door to minority Separatist traditions, a distinctively English innovation. Chapter 3 offers an accessible account of the gradual but more comprehensive national reform in Scotland. Here the greater emphasis on covenant as the model for an inclusive state church heightened anxieties over the Catholic sacraments as idolatrous, the importance of catechizing and baptism, and the distinction between the two kingdoms. Hall also signals how the experience of James VI in dealing with those pursuing a rigorously Presbyterian settlement forged his antipathy for the “puritanical divels” who had plagued his youth. James became convinced that a monarch ought to wield authority over the church, a view that would have an impact on the churches in all three kingdoms.

The middle section of the book focuses on shared theological priorities. Chapter 4 addresses the practical divinity, its emphasis on the care of souls and the fostering of conversion, which became a hallmark and export of the British Reformed traditions. Hall adeptly discusses the complexity of locating assurance within strongly predestinarian theological traditions. This is a theme he returns to in chapter 9, where he discusses development and diversification in theory and practice. Chapter 5 addresses a related concern, the reformation of manners. The Reformed propensity to draw on the paradigm of God's covenanting with Israel in Scotland, England, and New England (if only at the congregational level) accounted for the primacy given to obedience of divine law. Hall tantalizingly opens an important discussion on the concept of the Christian Common-weal and the inherent tensions within two kingdoms theories of the Reformed traditions, noting the particular influence of Martin Bucer's De Regno Christi in England and Scotland. The discussion leads neatly into a survey (chapter 6) of the British Reformers’ approach in attempting to reconcile royal and ecclesiastical policies viewed as inhibitive to fuller reformation and localized responses, including migration to Ulster and the melting pot of British dissenters in the Netherlands. Hall's discussion of the Irish context is thin and intermittent, which is unfortunate since Ireland served as a locus where many of the traditions discussed vied with one another. The analysis of the Netherlands, on the other hand, is nuanced and identifies multiple factors that facilitated softening distinctions between dissenting and Separatist traditions. However, a greater discussion of how the Dutch Reformed Church provided a model for a state church comprising gathered congregations—which seemingly underlies the Dissenting Brethren's proposals of the 1640s—might have been useful.

The third section of the book probably deserves a review of its own, albeit the shared roots explored above underpin the overall significance of the book. Throughout chapters 7, 8, and 9 Hall masterfully navigates his way through complex historiographies (as evidenced in the copious, detailed references and endnote discussions). Chapter 7 begins to explore in detail the emerging possibilities unleashed by the Scottish revolution, New England plantation, and crumbling of Charles I's repressive policies, while chapter 8 provides clear analysis of the impact a developing pan-British apocalypticism had in driving events forward. Here, Hall commendably balances analysis of historical events with a keen awareness of changing theological priorities. Ultimately, it was the inability of the Long Parliament, Commonwealth, and Protectorate to hold together a Reformed consensus in England that led to the failed opportunity they had for fuller reformation. Perhaps chapter 10 is the most significant of the book, as it offers as balanced an analysis of continuities, divergences, and pragmatic developments within Puritan theological and social practices as could be hoped for in such a succinct survey. Here Hall's ambition to retell the story of the Puritans through their religious beliefs and outworkings stands shoulders above what has come before in terms of scope and accessibility. Hall rounds off the book with a neat but effective summary of the legacies of Puritan thought and a brief defense against the anti-puritan rhetoric of subsequent generations.

This book is a monumental piece of scholarship that could only have been completed by an author with a lifetime's research under their belt. While readers with particular expertise may wish for greater detail in specific areas, Hall's book offers the most wide-ranging account of the Puritans’ world to date. His framing of methodological approach, synthesis of vast seas of scholarship, and clear, compelling narrative make this an indispensable starting point for those who wish to foray into this history and an important sounding board for established scholars to think about well-trodden historiography in its broader context.