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Publication notes

The Unitarian Universalist Historical Society has helped to fund the republication of Hunted Heretic by Roland Bainton

Book Description
Michael Servetus, a Spaniard executed for heresy in John Calvin’s Geneva, is remembered as an important Reformation-era theologian and as a physician credited with the discovery of the circulation of the blood through the lungs. His first book, On the Errors of the Trinity, so shocked both Catholics and Protestants that he was compelled to live under an assumed name. All but a few copies of his magnum opus, Christianity Restored, were destroyed shortly after publication. However, the case of Servetus, which has been taken up by Voltaire, Gibbon, and many others, marks the beginning of the idea of religous toleration.

From the Publisher
Roland H. Bainton’s classic biography of Servetus remains as useful and as readable today as it was when it was first published in 1953. This new addition includes:

• A new introduction by the leading modern Servetus Scholar, Ángel Alcalá
• Translation into English of text from Alcalá’s Spanish edition of 1973
• Additions to the notes and bibliography incorporating recent scholarship
• Many new annotations in the bibliography
• A short biography of Roland Bainton
• Historia Mortis Serveti: an account of the death of Servetus from 1554

Purchase book through UUA Bookstore

Our sincere thanks to Patricia Frevert of Skinner House, and to our hard-working Publications Task Force for this project: Lynn Gordon Hughes, Rev. Charles Howe, Rev. David A. Johnson, Naomi King, and Rev. Peter Hughes (our UUHS board liaison).

We welcome your suggestions of other works we should consider. Please contact Peter Hughes,   peterhughes@mindspring.com .

Landmark Edition of UUHS Journal Now Available

The UUHS is pleased to announce the recent publication of this year’s Journal of Unitarian and Universalist History containing a bibliography of American UU historical items published between 1946 and 1995. Compiled by Conrad Wright, this important resource is, in his own words, an “ominum gatherum” of works that came to his attention.  “Monographs, dissertations, and pieces published in scholarly journals make up the bulk of the listing,” he explains in his introduction, but “included also are fugitive items on aspects of UU history that scholars have ignored or never gotten around to.”

Conrad Wright is the leading scholar of American Unitarianism and among those of the liberal Christian tradition. He was lecturer in church history, registrar, and professor of American Church History at Harvard Divinity School from 1954-1989, and he is now Professor Emeritus of American Church History.

His works include:

•  The Beginnings of Unitarianism in America (1955)
•  The Liberal Christians (1970)
•  The Unitarian Controversy (1994)
•  Walking Together: Polity and Participation in Unitarian Universalist Churches (1989)
•  A Stream of Light (1975) editor and co-author
•  Three Prophets of Religious Liberalism (1961) editor

The 144-page issue of the Journal includes a listing by year of publication, indexes of names and authors, and ones that are topical and geographical. “The intent,” says Professor Wright, “is to include material that those at work on a particular topic would want to know about.”

The Journal costs $15, and may be ordered by contacting Paul Sprecher, UUHS, 691 Main St., Hingham, MA 02043-3130, or psprecher@uuma.org.

Please send comments or corrections to psprecher@uuma.org . This site was updated April 16, 2008.