The beginning of the American Revolution in the conversion of Northampton. The travail of the Puritan covenant -- Original sin: human limitations and the openness of community -- God is no respecter of persons: the ordinary, lowly, and infantile nature of the revival -- The "strange revolution" and the aesthetics of grace -- The second great awakening, the national period, and Melville's American destiny. Pierre; or, The Ambiguities and the formation of the American dilemma -- A revolutionary marriage deferred -- The mystery of Melville's darkwoman -- From "self" to "soul": W.E.B. Du Bois's critical understanding of the ideals of liberal democracy in the new world. Strange Jeremiah: civil religion and the public intellectual -- Strivings and original sin: the unlovely, plural American soul -- The talented tenth and colonizing heroes -- Du Bois's aesthetic of beauty in the new world -- The irony of the American self.