From New Babylon to Eden: The Huguenots and Their Migration to Colonial South Carolina (Carolina Lowcountry and the Atlantic World) - Softcover

Bertrand Van Ruymbeke

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1643363301 ISBN 13: 9781643363301

Publisher: University of South Carolina Press, 2025

Synopsis

A revealing account of the choices French immigrants faced as they settled in South Carolina Winner of the National Huguenot Society's 2007 Book of the Year award, From New Babylon to Edentraces the persecution of Huguenots in France and the eventual immigration of a small bloc of the French Calvinist population to proprietary South Carolina. Placing the Carolina migration in the context of the larger Huguenot diaspora, Van Ruymbeke proffers an account that challenges accepted history. Describing their settlement as a process of acculturation and creolization rather than simply assimilation, he contends that most of these French Calvinists sought to create their own churches but were thwarted by an Anglicized elite eager to dominate Anglo-Carolinian society. He also reveals that most members of the initial generation were only moderately prosperous and that it was their descendants who acquired the wealth often associated with lowcountry Huguenots. A new foreword by Owen Stanwood and preface from the author consider the continuing significance of the book nearly twenty years after its original publication.

About this title

About the Author

Bertrand Van Ruymbekeis a professor of American civilization at the Universitè de Vincennes-Saint-Denis (Paris VIII). He is the coeditor of Memory and Identity: The Huguenots in France and the Atlantic Diasporaand has published in the fields of Huguenot history, early American history, and Atlantic history.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1643363301
• ISBN 13: 9781643363301
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 432