What a great read! I absolutely loved this one!

Roger Williams was one that popped up continually in my history courses, but there was no in-depth discussions. This book went further into Williams and the many different incidents that he was involved in. I found myself intrigued by many of the different uprisings, as well as the unrest that was going on with the native tribes.

Definitely worth a read!

Nonfiction about New England in the 1600s, specifically regarding interactions between Native Americans and the English. Warren does an excellent job of explaining in detail the Narragansett religion and government, and their complex trade and political alliances with other Indian nations (the Nipmucks, Mohegans, Montauks, Niantics, Pequots, Wampanoags, and others). I particularly liked his emphasis that, from the viewpoint of the early 1600s, it was not inevitable that the English would win control of the region. It's easy to look back now and assume things could only have gone the way they did go, but Warren reminds us that the Puritans weren't actually destined to defeat the Native Americans.

My main criticism is that Warren seems to struggle in finding a focus. Is this book a biography of Roger Williams? Not really, though he certainly gets more attention than any other individual person. Is it about King Philip's War (1675-8)? Also not really; though the war forms the climax of the book, two chapters out of eleven don't make for a "focus". Is it about the Narragansetts? I suspect Warren wanted that to be his focus, but without many written sources, he ends up spending way more time on the English than the Native Americans. Is it about the founding of Rhode Island? Eh, that's the closest any particular topic comes to summarizing the whole book, but there's far too much about the internal dynamics of the Puritan colonies (Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven) and the various nearby Native Americans to quite capture it. In the end, God, War, and Providence comes off as some neat facts without a clear beginning or end to give them structure and explain why these neat facts and not some other compilation of equally neat facts.

Despite that, it's an easily readable, gripping book, written for a general audience rather than an academic one. It's a great look at a time and place in American history that hasn't received enough attention.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2830560370

What do you know about early New England history - say 1635 to 1675? Were the Puritans the same as the Pilgrims? Why did folks brave the rough Atlantic to come to a rocky coast and settle? What did the early settlers do to survive and then thrive? In God. War. and Providence. James A Warren works on shedding light on this little studied history of the relations of English settlers and and their Native American neighbors in the 1600's.

James A. Warren opens the book with a key attack on the Narragansett Indians during King Philip's War. He then goes back to set the stage by building from 1635 when relations between Indian and Puritan were peaceful to the 1670's when war was waged to crush the local Indians once or all. Along this journey of exploration comes Roger Williams who plays a crucial role in the evolving relationship of settlers and natives. The colony of Rhode Island was settled after he was cast out of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Plymouth Colony for preaching his conscience. By establishing a colony based on freedom of religion that also cultivated good relations with local Indian tribes, Rhode Island proved an obstacle to the United Colonies plans for dominating New England. Roger Williams had to make two trips to England to totally secure the rights and boundaries of Rhode Island against the depredations of the Puritans. Roger Williams also did what he could to defuse the brewing conflict between the Puritans and Narragansetts, but ultimately failed.

James A Warren wrote a very readable, yet scholarly examination of early New England history that is skimmed over in most histories. He skillfully uses the sources available while discussing the shortcomings of each. So if you are interested in secret or hidden American stories, read God, War, and Providence.

God, War and Providence is an excellent history book that focuses on a very narrow time period and geographical area, but deals with it in a thorough and detailed manner. It is well written and enjoyable to read. Author James Warren examines the founding and early days of the colony of Rhode Island and its largely symbiotic relationship with the Narragansett Indians. Warren has obviously done his research on the politics of the era and on the biographical details of Roger Williams, the most prominent of the Rhode Island founders. The story of Roger Williams' fight for religious freedom is fascinating. The book details the political infighting among the different camps of Rhode Islanders and the quest for a Rhode Island charter from England, as well as the stormy and at times violent connections between Rhode Island and the neighboring New England colonies. Woven together with the story of the early days of Rhode Island is the history of the Narragansetts, the most powerful of the Native American alliances in New England. Their eventual destruction was inevitable, but Roger Williams and other Rhode Islanders did what they could to mitigate the damage.

This book, though overall an excellent read, has a few flaws in my opinion. First, while author James Warren understands the enormous importance of religious beliefs to the politics and people of the era, he is less well versed on the theology of the time than he is on the political situation (for example, he wrongly defines "antinomianism"). As I'm somewhat familiar with the early days of Baptist history, I noticed a few errors here and there in the theological terminology. Second, it seems that Warren has a tendency to caricature nearly all of the Puritans as pious hypocrites who were land hungry and expansionist. Though some certainly fit that description, I'm convinced that many or most of the Puritans, while misguided in some areas like their dealing with the Indians, were nevertheless deeply sincere in their religious beliefs. Third, Warren occasionally seems to try to portray Roger Williams as a man out of his time who would fit in better among tolerant social justice warriors today. While religious liberty was certainly the exception in the 1600s, Roger Williams was not a pluralist or a relativist. He strongly believed in the existence of absolutes, but he was against persecuting others for their different (and in his view, wrong) beliefs. That's not the same thing as the postmodern mindset that no man's truth is more right or wrong than another's.

Despite these critiques, I really enjoyed the book. I would recommend it to anyone interested in the history of colonial New England. It won't be a waste of your time! I received a digital copy of this book for free from the publisher and was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I express in this review are entirely my own.

I received a free Kindle copy of God, War and Providence by James Warren courtesy of Net Galley  and Scribner, the publisher. It was with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and my fiction book review blog. I also posted it to my Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus pages.

I requested this book as all I really know about the history of the founding of Rhode Island is what I read many years ago in school. This is the first book by Jame s Warren that I have read.

This a well researched and well written history of what happened during the founding of the area now known as Rhode Island. While the subtitle of the book addresses the content it does leave out one important item in my opinion. It is that Roger Williams in establishing a new colony and obtaining a charter was an incubator for the democratic process that has been the foundation for our country.

The book addresses the narrow mindedness and lack of true christian values that the Puritans in Massachussetts espoused. Williams walked the talk and lived a life that very much represented what the Puritans were supposed to represent.

I recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in the early history of the northeastern United States and in the early establishment of the principles upon which our country now operates.

Perhaps because I read so many history books, I tend to be somewhat of a tough critic of them, but I cannot find fault with this one. This is a riveting, fascinating story and recounted by the author in such a way that you feel like you are right there, witnessing the events for yourself. If you think history is boring, I challenge you to read this book, for it might just change your opinion.

I enjoyed this book for many reasons, but particularly because this author does not simply give a dry and acerbic recount of what happened during this period. He has a way of making the facts interesting and making history alive again. So may authors get caught up in accurately reporting the facts that their books begin to feel like little but lists of important events all piled one on top of the other. That is not the case with this book.

You will undoubtedly learn something during your reading of this, for it is packed with valuable information, but you will also find that the human element to the story is always present and makes you feel like you are reading about real people, faced with obstacles they must overcome and decisions that will affect them, just as we are today.

This is an excellent book, with a lot to offer to both the scholar and the general reader. I cannot recommend it enough.

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher, provided through Netgalley. All opinions are my own.