Volume 26, Number 14 · September 27, 1979
Prophetess
By Owen Chadwick
The Second Coming: Popular Millenarianism 1780-1850
by J.F.C. Harrison
Rutgers University Press, 266 pp., $19.50
When men or women go mad, they sometimes cast their madness into religious unrealities. Insanity is not a matter for the historian, whose business is the reality of the past. Some English historians were grieved when they heard that so good a social historian as J.F.C. Harrison was spending precious hours of research on Joanna Southcott (1750-1814), a prophetess widely considered to be mad. It seemed like poking around an asylum hoping to find historical truth from the utterances of the inmates. In this beautifully written book Professor Harrison proves abundantly that he has not wasted time.
Review, 1968 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |