Puritanism that was apparently a belief in which a man devotes his life in search of salvation and abstain one self from doing any sin, though he will commit sin and do evil. Therefore, the idea of Puritanism was to reform the world by presenting the picture of God’s holy kingdom at the same time teaching that there is no cure for the evils of the world and they are inevitable.

Edmund Morgan in his book, “The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop” expresses the struggle of John Winthrop regarding his desire to join the separatist school of thought to detach himself from the impure part of England. In this book the writer has set up an example for men to struggle for a pure Christian community. Therefore, John Winthrop along his fellow Puritan colonist keeping themselves away from the church physically but spiritually were very much attached to it had struggled for their desire and believe via political means. So in this book the most interesting thing is the amalgamation of spiritual and religious philosophy and its practical experience to take birth and then grow by using political authority. This book, which was published in 1962 is one of the most enduring works of Edmund Morgan’s publications, which gave a starting point to understand the motivations behind the Puritan migration to America along the ideological and political difficulties faced by them once they arrived. Where he introduced the idea to develop a community and city in the hill, which later on brought revolutionary change in the betterment of the country.

Therefore, the book narrates the series of challenges faced by Winthrop, which had flowed from the various aspects of the Puritan dilemma. His first challenge started when he got governing power of Massachusetts, where he was concerned on how to governed the colony. He was basically confused to adopt the Puritan covenant of God that bound the people to His laws, which naturally bound the people to the means to enforce the covenant of God as a source of law to them. While the third challenge was related to the belief that one can influence God and the conflict among the religious ideologies related Puritanism and other ideologies presented in the book, were expressed to be an alarming threat to any society. Another question that Winthrop was facing, was related to the position of the new city that where should it look forward to strengthen to its foreign relation that the religious culture will impact on this new city made on a Hill top.

Therefore, here we find the practical approach of Winthrop, which affected the people and in a comparatively democratic society, Puritans established to its worst form. This book indirectly gives the reader a lesson that, even a state is very holy but the foreign policy needs to be a little flexible. As shown presented the story of Winthrop that he realized and observed that even in such a state the foreign policy should support one evil in order to suppress one worst one. This he realized when he had to choose people for foreign affairs as it was a very difficult task that required rare wisdom to recognize a good person among the multiple evils of the world

Nevertheless, what makes the whole story interesting written by Morgan is the struggle of democratic America even 370 years back in regard to the very core of the political scenario of the country. He very beautifully related the strong religious ideologies at that time with the political set up and the influence that could be on any society due to the diverse evils in the world. Morgan very nicely managed to relate all these areas in his book along the various confrontations faced by Winthrop which ultimately led to a separatist movement resulting to a revolution splitting England with an exploding of a Civil War. So the writer has related the Puritans to the modern America along the impact of various religious and political ideologies as an experience of Winthrop for instance, the Elitism, nihilism, Isolationism etc.

However, an impressive aspect that binds the interest of the reader is the reality expressed in this book by focusing the experiences of Winthrop emphasizing the theme of Puritanism, which in the book affected not only John Winthrop but also England, which is related to men of principle of all societies and all ages. The rational to present the picture of New England was to present a community where the laws of God could be followed similarly the way people follow any other law by both the church as well as the state. This was in order to make the world recognize the relation of state and church with society and politics.

Nonetheless this book where Morgan pictured Winthrop as an example which will keep reminding the people of America as well as the readers that in past we have been closer and dedicated ourselves to be more closer so we can do now. Furthermore, this book also covers American freedom in a shape of a brief biography possessing the principle problems in America in a consistent manner.