A classy magazine published 11 times a year in Philadelphia and having a readership in all 50 states and 43 foreign countries has reviewed my book Quaking Dover. Yay!
As Friends Journal critic Marty Grundy asks, "What was it about Dover, N.H., on the Piscataqua River separating it from Maine, that enabled early Friends ministers to establish first a toehold and then to gather a third of the populace into the meeting, in spite of New England's violent opposition to Quakers?"
Dover, I might venture, is way off the radar of the usual Quaker heritage addicts.
For answers, she notes, "This book offers an alternative history to the usual Puritan-centric stories," a volume where "history is not just the result of the larger, impersonal scope of folkways, economic and political forces, or social class. It is lived by individuals who are part of families, individuals who make personal choices and influence those with whom they live. So Hodson also traces family connections showing that both a bold embrace of Quakerism and bitter persecution of the disturbers of the status quo tended to run in families."
Yes, it is about people.
As Grundy also observes, "The book is an artifact of COVID in that it was created using what is available on the web, including secondary sources, much older published accounts, and summaries of meeting minutes … As anyone knows who has tried to do historical research recently, there is a gratifyingly wide variety of materials available electronically. Hodson has done a good job of mining; juxtaposing; and, as he says, 'connecting the dots' to produce a somewhat speculative but eminently well-argued and documented account," one "also filled with verbal asides as the author comments on what he is discovering and sharing with the reader. He offers various versions of events and cheerfully acknowledges when he can't find facts to fill in gaps."
For the full review, see the magazine's March issue.
My, and this was in a periodical going back only to 1827.
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