Review: The Great Awakening by Joseph Tracy
The Great Awakening by Joseph Tracy
This is the final book in our series, Reformation and Revival.
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Book info
P. #: 453
Author: Joseph Tracy (1793-1874)
Life: Joseph Tracy was born in Hartford, Vermont, in 1793. He graduated with an MA from Dartmouth College and a DD from the University of Vermont, and became a Congregational minister in 1821. During and after his ministry, he devoted himself to literature and learning. He married Eleanor Washburn in 1819, and after her death, married Sarah Prince in 1842. He had eight children and died in 1874 after a brief illness.
General info about author: Joseph Tracy was a scholar, writer, minister, husband, and father.
Overall Summary/review:
This is by far the most academic work that we’ve reviewed in this series, and serves as a very deep overview of revivals in the Great Awakening. Tracy bases most of this book on first person accounts and heavily uses more than a dozen large sources and distils them into this book. He lists each one in his preface.
Many of these sources are primary, first-person accounts, which makes them very reliable.
Tracy also walks us through many of the revivals during the great awakening and emphasizes that it did not all take place at once or in one town (p. 1).
Tracy also packs so much information into smaller-sized chapters, which makes it very accessible and readable.
A few things stood out to me about revival as I read this book. Given this is a series on revival, I want to point them out here:
For one thing, there is always strong and constant prayer. (p. 111, 140, 170)
Another thing is a strong conviction of sin (p. 101, 117)
There is an understanding of the need for the Holy Spirit (p. 40-41)
And finally, a strong view of Christ
There was also a pattern of revival in terms of how it begins.
It begins with the young people (p. 20, 125, 127, 169, 198)
It begins with and includes much reading (p. 43, 61, 140, 167, 395)
Tracy closes out his book with the chapter, The Results which is an excellent, concise, but thorough breakdown of the effects of the Great Awakening.
Quotes: p. 85, 87, 135, 147, 196