John Eliot's Mission to the Indians before King Philip's War by Richard W. Cogley (review)

652BOOK REVIEWS be sure, and shows where the Church had shortcomings and where it had strengths, but it never really comes to grips with the dynamic role of the Catholic Church in world history. As a result, it fails to explain the fundamental role of religion in sustaining the West against Communism and, by the same token, in weakening Soviet society because the Communists attacked religion and thus cut the taproot of social order. Furthermore, while the study rightly places John Paul II at the head of the drive to bring down the Soviet empire, it does not appreciate that the pope, like earlier popes, still had no troops or weapons to move the Communist authorities, and so had to wait until a leader appeared in the most powerful of the Western states who would take a moral stand against Communism and use the threat of force to back up his words. As it turned out, two leaders emerged: Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. In combination with the pope, they abandoned the policy of debilitating compromises with the Communists, and Communist society quickly imploded. The book does make the cogent point that the entire century was largely a struggle between religion and ideology, a fact that most historians fail to grasp as they focus solely upon economics, politics, or national security. However, the authors do not develop and explore their insight. Religious vigor, or the lack thereof, reveals much about order in many countries, from Russia to Poland to Bosnia to the United States, and it desperately needs more attention from the academic community. The great lesson of history for nations and civilizations at the end of the twentieth century seems to be that religion, not ideology,is a requisite for order. Furthermore,Western Christianity, particularly the Catholic Church, is not only a source of order, but also a wellspring of change, more so than any other religion , including Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism/ Confucianism, and might very well be a prerequisite for modern Western-style democracy and economic development. Dennis J. Dunn Southwest Texas State University American fohn Eliot's Mission to the Indians before King Philip's War. By Richard W. Cogley. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 1999. Pp. xiv, 331. $45.00.) Richard Cogley's new book adds significantly to our understanding of Puritan missionary John Eliot's work among Indians in eastern Massachusetts from the 1640's to the eve of King Philip's War (1675-76). He is the first to integrate Eliot's thought, his interactions with other figures and institutions in both Eng- BOOK REVIEWS653 land and New England, and the pastoral and administrative dimensions of his mission.Along the way Cogley corrects many details—as well as some lesser interpretive points—in the works of previous scholars. In particular, he shows that "praying Indians" asserted themselves far more forcefully than some previous scholars have suggested, and details more closely than they the lives of individual Indians. Nevertheless, Cogley's discussion remains incomplete. On one hand, Cogley attempts to refute the arguments of several "revisionists," including this reviewer ,who argued in the 1970's and '80's that Eliot's work was bound up with the larger English colonial project in which eastern Massachusetts Indians were disempowered. On the other hand, he declines to engage the primary subject matter that these "revisionists" introduced to the historiography: the larger cultural and historical contexts within which "praying Indians" came to identify themselves as such. What Indians brought to the missionary encounter in terms of beliefs, identities, and pre-colonization histories figures not at all in this book. Another major omission arises from Cogley's chronology. By ending his study in 1675, Cogley avoids confronting the strongest evidence against his favorable verdict on Eliot's success: the shallowness of popular support for the missions, among both colonists and Indians. This shallowness cannot be attributed simply to the passions of wartime. When combined even with Cogley's own evidence , the mission's wartime collapse forces a more trenchant consideration. In connection with his ignoring the war, Cogley decides in his concluding evaluation of Eliot's mission not to include praying towns founded within five years...