A Providential History of America

For jeremy belknap, ebenezer hazard, and John Pintard, history served piety, and piety spurred history. Religious conviction lay behind their historical endeavors, including their extensive efforts to establish historical societies in America. The few scholars who have studied these figures and the rise of historical societies often miss this fundamental point. They frequently separate Belknap, Hazard, and Pintard from religious beliefs in order to describe a turning point in the writing of history, a movement from something more religious and centered on the doings of God to something more modern and centered on the actions of humans. Yet there is