Anne Hutchinson was an extraordinary woman, and this is an exceptional book that explains so much more than the trials of one person in one society. In her gendered analysis of seventeenth-century Puritanism, Westerkamp contextualizes Hutchinson so that we see her as an early example of the liberation possible in radical Protestantism. We follow the story for a generation after her expulsion and death to discover the blossoming of women as preachers and spiritual leaders, especially in Quaker circles, and the strong reactions among Puritans to such an upset to the social order. In male Puritan leaders’ resistance to such challenges to their authority, Westerkamp argues, they lost the chance to embrace the full potential of their own theology and instead condemned it to declension.

Westerkamp leads with a full description of Hutchinson's 1637 and 1638 civil and church trials. Famously, Hutchinson “ran exegetical circles around” those who accused her of not adhering to the fifth commandment and of teaching men, her scriptural expertise making her impervious to their pointed questions (18). But she was found guilty of sedition by the court and excommunicated by the church. Hutchinson moved to Rhode Island and from there to New Netherlands, where she died. Westerkamp then takes us out in ever-increasing circles of context, starting with Puritan New England in 1630s, delineating the goals of the colony and the problems that arose immediately with many dissenters including Roger Williams, Samuel Gorton, and others less well known. Next, she explores the position of women in such a theocracy, exposing the inherent contradictions of portraying women as weak yet dangerous. Midwives such as Hutchinson with medical knowledge exclusive to women occupied a particularly powerful place.

From there, we learn of the importance of mysticism within the theology of Puritanism and that of other dissenting sects in the mid-seventeenth century. That mysticism opened a door for women as leaders, for the intimacy of a personal relationship with God by which his spirit would bring revelations seemed to have feminine attributes. Westerkamp devotes a lot of space to an explanation of Quaker women, positioning them as Hutchinsonians to an extent. “The uniqueness of Hutchinson is a historical myth that should be dispelled. Hutchinson was undoubtedly one of many women engaged by these alternative religiosities” (153). The ferocity of the persecution facing any Quaker who dared cross the Massachusetts border from 1655 on stemmed from the Hutchinson phenomenon. The Puritan fathers had learned not to even give them a voice via a trial, but to grant zero tolerance, for Hutchinson's legacy would be to become more famous than the Puritan experiment. In doing so, Westerkamp argues that “the Puritan patriarchs destroyed their own world when they destroyed her” (234).

The Passion of Anne Hutchinson is a stellar work of scholarship from an experienced writer, steeped in the entirety of the primary and secondary sources—not merely the mountain of literature on the New England antinomian story, but works on seventeenth-century sects on both sides of the Atlantic, on gender analysis, on midwifery, and on mysticism. Although the central protagonist is fascinating, it is the thesis and defending evidence marshaled by Westerkamp that renders the book so terrific for undergraduate classes in colonial America or women's history. Hutchinson was not a singular figure. And in building that case, we learn all about the Quakers and thus about the religious orthodoxies and class politics they threatened. Students will love how the generous use of primary quotations brings the seventeenth century to life, incorporating both the gruesome language of disease metaphors for Quaker women and the sensuality attached to descriptions of a relationship with Jesus. Those more sober will connect it with the old Bailyn classic about the New England merchant class who eventually undercut the power of the Mathers: Hutchinson's supporters included the first generation of Boston merchants. Highly recommended.