Baird Tipson (A. B. Princeton; Ph. D. Yale) taught Religious Studies at the University of Virginia and Central Michigan University before becoming Provost of Gettysburg College (1987-1995), President of Wittenberg University (1995-2004), and President of Washington College (2004-2010). He presently teaches at Gettysburg College, continues research on religion in Tudor-Stuart England and early New England, and sings in the choir at St. James Lutheran Church in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

"[a] thorough yet beautifully written work ... Historical theology students in seminaries and divinity schools as well as scholars of puritanism and early American religious history would benefit greatly from this book." -- Jacob Hicks, Religious Studies Review

"Tipson presents us with a detailed picture of Hookerâs theology... he promotes a better understanding of puritanism and of human experience in the seventeenth century as a whole." -- S. Bryn Roberts, The Seventeenth Century

"Tipson's examination of Hooker and to a lesser degree his colleague at Hartford, Samuel Stone, is so thorough and so elegantly written that there can be little doubt that this book will prove of great value to subsequent researchers into Hooker and his milieu."--Harry Clark Maddux, Early American Literature

"[Tipson] is consciously moving Hooker s writings on practical divinity into the broader currents of recent transatlantic Puritan and early modern theological research. In that he is entirely successful....This is an extremely fine-grained, expansive, nuanced study, and should be considered the new baseline for scholarship on Hooker's preaching."--The New England Quarterly

"Remarkable, wide-ranging...Tipson's erudite back story of Puritan theology will become required reading for scholars of Anglo-American Calvinism."--Journal of American History

"A brilliant reinterpretation of Thomas Hooker and puritanism along the Connecticut River. Tipson deftly explores the English roots of the subject and demonstrates the diversity of New England's seventeenth-century religious life. This will be required reading for all interested in American religion and colonial New England." --Francis J. Bremer, Professor Emeritus, Department of History, Millersville University of Pennsylvania

"Baird Tipson has written a searching and thoughtful description of an early American theologian, notable because Tipson has an exceptional command of the history of theology, both Catholic and Reformed, and uses this knowledge to illuminate what was different or special about Hooker's version of the practical divinity. A must read for any serious student of the practical divinity as it flourished on both sides of the Atlantic in the seventeenth century." --David D. Hall, Harvard Divinity School

"Baird Tipson has thoroughly mastered the writings and deeds--the life and times--of Thomas Hooker, founder of Connecticut and a leading American Puritan. The result is a splendid biography drawn from close attention to English, Dutch, and American sources, a brilliant (if also harrowing) account of Hooker's sharply predestinarian theology, and a much-needed corrective to misguided attempts at showing the modernity of this crucial figure. It is a strikingly effective book." --Mark A. Noll, author of America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln

"Anyone interested in Puritan practical divinity can read Hartford Puritanism with profit. This is an extremely fine-grained, expansive, nuanced study, and should be considered the new baseline for scholarship on Hooker's preaching."--The New England Quarterly