Selected Works
2002: American Heretic: Theodore Parker and Transcendentalism
2003 Outstanding Academic Title, Choice magazine. The manuscript for this book won the Alan Nevins Prize from the Society of American Historians. “AMERICAN HERETIC is a tremendous achievement. Vivid, detailed, wide ranging, it powerfully restores Theodore Parker to us a major figure, one of our great activist intellectuals, and an inspiration for his world and ours.” --Robert D. Richardson author of William James in the Maelstrom of American Modernism and Emerson: The Mind on Fire "Grodzins brilliantly brings Parker to life. ... [His] rich and textured portrait is buttressed by meticulous scholarship: He has left no available book or journal unopened. ... Great fun: an elegant, deeply scholarly work that by turns reads like a coming-of-age novel, a conversion narrative, a tragic historical romance, and an intellectual odyssey. ... A dazzling--and essential--read." --UU World "The arrival of Dean Grodzins's AMERICAN HERETIC is a landmark event .... [It] is one of the best biographies we have of a major Transcendentalist figure and far and away the best one of Parker." --New England Quarterly "Grodzins provides an intricately remastered portrait of a highly controversial yet profoundly influential scholar and pastor. ... Far more than an impressive account of a religious figure, American Heretic provides a noteworthy contribution to American intellectual history. ... Highly recommended." --Choice "Grodzins has written what is without a doubt the definitive treatment of the early life of Theodore Parker. . . . For its sheer scale, depth of research, level of clarity, and more, it stands as quite an achievement." --H-SHEAR "This book uncovers so much new evidence and produces so many gems of original insight into Parker's brilliant yet complex personality that any reader interested in the social or intellectual aspects of the period should profit greatly." --American Historical Review "Scholars of American religious history owe a debt to Grodzins for a masterful treatment of Parker's life and times. ... A fresh look at an important figure in American religious history." --Journal of American Academy for Religion 
"Dean Grodzins offers a fascinating analysis of class conflict in Boston." --Journal of the Early Republic
2010: “Unitarianism," in Oxford Handbook of Transcendentalism, Myerson, Petrulionis, and Walls, eds., pp.50-69.
"Challenging or refining the bulk of now-conventional wisdom, The Oxford Handbook of Transcendentalism is certain to open future paths of intellectual progress." -- www.calliope.org 
"A magnificent achievement. Brilliant editing and graceful writing shatter many old assumptions about the world of the Founders. ... An Extensive Republic is the rare reference book that is also a mesmerizing read." --Linda Kerber, University of Iowa "[This book] provides a fascinating revisionist history of the United States through its focus on what was printed, how the economy of the book trades worked, who was reading, and what role reading came to assume in all sorts of people's lives." - Patricia Crain, New York University 
“There’s fresh material, fresh perspective, and more.” --Peter Wallenstein, author of Blue Laws and Black Codes: Conflict, Courts, and Change in Twentieth-Century Virginia “[I]n the spirit of revisiting Brown, Paul Finkelman and Peggy Russo have edited a diverse and intriguing new volume that takes its place at the top of a significant pile of writing on the Old Man from Osawatomie.... This is one volume that makes an important contribution to that ongoing conversation.” --The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 
"Whether Unitarian Universalists have responded to President William G. Sinkford’s call for a renewed 'language of reverence' with appreciation or anger, the subject has generated a rousing and enduring conversation. ... But until quite recently, a newcomer to the conversation might have felt unsure about the source of all the commotion; there was no single collection of primary documents under discussion. A Language of Reverence, a brief collection of key speeches, answers that need." -UU World 
"Every essay in the collection provides a fresh perspective and maintains high standards of argumentation, documentation, and style." --Journal of American History |
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