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)

    What have we achieved in mowing down mountain ranges, harnessing the energy of mighty rivers, or moving whole populations about like chess pieces, if we ourselves remain the same restless, miserable, frustrated creatures we were before? To call such activity progress is utter delusion. We may succeed in altering the face of the earth until it is unrecognizable even to the Creator, but if we are unaffected wherein lies the meaning?
    —Henry Miller (1891–1980)