Download or read book Triumph of the Laity written by Marilyn J. Westerkamp and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1988 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this important revisionist study, Marilyn Westerkamp argues that the Great Awakening of the 1740s--a religious revival of dramatic scope and violence that swept through the mid-Atlantic colonies--had its origins in events far removed from America in time and place. Drawing from previously neglected primary sources, Westerkamp traces the Awakening's roots to 17th-century Scots-Irish revivalism and contends that it travelled to the colonies with Scots-Irish emigrants. Hardly the spiritual innovation that it is sometimes represented to be, the Awakening was thus but one development in a long-standing tradition.