This book is part of a three-part series on America as a Covenant Nation. This volume begins with the period in the early 1600s when two very different English societies were established in the New World, one in Virginia and one in New England. The Virginia society simply re-created the rigidly class-based feudal society of the times. The New England society was a most unusual democracy of social equals, covenanted to live under God's—not man's—personal rule. These two American social types would find themselves in rather constant struggle—as Americans found keeping covenant with God to be very difficult because of man's natural tendency to want to control life, including the lives of others.

This volume will take the American narrative through the Christian "Great Awakening," the War of Independence, the founding of a new American Republic, the early years of social spread across the continent, a "Second Great Awakening," mounting tensions over the slavery issue, the American Civil War, and finally the period of Reconstruction afterward. This study goes deeply into social, political, and economic dynamics (a study in social power)—but also blends this analysis with an equally deep inquiry into the cultural-spiritual character of American society during these time periods and events.