NPR Contributor Sarah Vowell Reads from Her New Book About Puritan History

Crowds packed into the First Parish Church on Saturday to hear Sarah Vowell, a contributor to NPR’s “This American Life,” discuss the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, or, as she called them, “bickering Jesus freaks.”

Vowell read from her new book, “The Wordy Shipmates,” a humorous historical account of the Massachusetts Bay Colonists, and answered questions from a lighthearted audience at the event organized by the Harvard Book Store.

“What a dump, huh?” Vowell asked with a smile, acknowledging the fitting setting. John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts, had banished Anne Hutchinson for heresy in this church in 1637.

Vowell decided to write about the Puritans as the idea of American exceptionalism became more prevalent in the press. Her interest was sparked particularly by former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s reading of the Puritan sermon that referred to America as “a city upon the hill.”

When John Winthrop delivered this sermon in 1630, Vowell said, he wanted to remind America that, “The eyes of the world are upon us and we could fail.”

Vowell said she believes that Winthrop’s warning is necessary in contemporary America.

Many in the audience were fans of Vowell’s other historical accounts as well as her radio work, but, as Boston native John Kelly said, “‘The Wordy Shipmates’ has a definite local flavor.”

Audience members asked Vowell questions ranging from her favorite TV shows to the state of history education in the United States. She expressed a fear that the school system wrings all the interest out of history.

But Vowell said that she has always found history intriguing having grown up in a family of history buffs. “History wasn’t something that happened to other people, but something that happened to everyone,” she said.