The book was a hard but rewarding read. It contains a lot of information that I was not familiar with, and it took me some time to read. The book did not take me five months to read; I frequently had to put it down because my head was spinning from the amount of new material.

The book gives some vital insights into the origins of how America became America; the Puritans believed that America was the new Jerusalem. Even though I am not a Puritan (I am Jewish) it is easy to understand how different a society America was from Europe, even though many of not most Americans are descended from Europeans. The book hints at how we became both an individualistic and democratic society. ( )