The marvelous accomplishment of Gura's "Jonathan Edwards" is to place the rich intellectual landscape of America's most formidable evangelical within the upheaval of his times. Gura not only captures Edwards's brilliance but respectfully explains the enduring appeal of his theology: in a world of profound uncertainty, it is held-out hope of an authentic conversion - the quickening of the indwelling spirit of God in one's heart and the cosequent certitude of godly behavior and everlasting grace. Tracing Jonathan Edwards's life from his birth in 1703 to his untimely death in 1758, Gura magnificently reasserts Edwards's rightful claim as the most important divine of America's evangelical tradition.