Perry Miller

Perry Miller

Perry G. Miller (February 25, 1905 – December 9, 1963) was an American intellectual historian and Harvard University professor. He was an authority on American Puritanism, and a founder of the field of American Studies. Alfred Kazin referred to him as "the master of American intellectual history". In his most famous book, The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century (1939), Miller adopted a cultural approach to illuminate the worldview of the Puritans, unlike previous historians who employed psychological and economic explanations of their beliefs and behavior.

Read more about Perry Miller:  Biography, Historiography, Influence, Legacy, Books

Famous quotes containing the words perry and/or miller:

    You’ll admit there’s always the possibility of some employee becoming disgruntled over some fancied injustice. Dissatisfaction always leads to temptation. There’s always purchasers for valuable secrets.
    —Joseph O’Donnell. Clifford Sanforth. Donald Jordan, Murder by Television, trying to bribe Perry into revealing Professor Houghland’s secret (1935)

    Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.
    —Henry Miller (1891–1980)