Anyone read A Shopkeeper's Millenium by Paul E. Johnson?

Question

any brief and important details from the book? I don't have time to read it and need it for a history final!!! : (

Answer 1

Johnson's book is cited a lot. He seems to make a connection between the rise of the urban middle class and the Finney revivals, which in turn spurred social actions such as anti-slavery, and limits on alcohol. The revivals seemed to define middle class morality and rein in social excesses, um, excessively. Some see the revivals as disruptive, as in they changed the authority relationships, that this had an impact on the industrial workplace. The ten-hour work week was a benevolent token to evangelical pressures and had the side benefit of pacifying the working class. Those most settled and encultured in a society were part of the revival, so while some things seemed revolutionary, they often were essentially the cowing of society, a domesticating influence during times of change and potential upheavel.

I don't fully agree with his tack, but it is authoritative and well-researched. Many parts are dead-on right and solid. Still, George A. Rawlyk, in Champions of the Truth (Center for Canadian Studies, 1990), he tried to apply Johnson's Social Control Model to his study of Nova Scotia communities during revivals in the early 1800s and concluded "I saw the model made little sense" (p. 25).

Answer 2

i've got continuously heard that the three L's of an useful enterprise are area, area, area. nicely, this sensible shopkeeper needless to say understood this by ability of identifying on the area of the main considerable front sign to be above his save.