Governing the Tongue: The Politics of Speech in Early New England

Governing the Tongue examines the special nature and power of speech in Puritan New England, where the twin desires to promote godly speech and suppress deviant words dominated everyday culture. The crimes of the accused at such famous events as the Salem witch trials and the banishment of Anne Hutchinson were all related to so-called "sins of the tongue". By placing speech at the heart of her examination of these and other moments in Puritan history, Kamensky develops new ideas about the relationship between speech and power both in colonial New England and, by extension, in our world today.