Great Awakening, religious revival in the British American colonies mainly between about 1720 and the 1740s. It was a part of the religious ferment that swept western Europe in the latter part of the 17th century and early 18th century, referred to as Pietism and Quietism in continental Europe among Protestants and Roman Catholics and as Evangelicalism in England under the leadership of John Wesley (1703–91). The Puritan fervour of the American colonies waned toward the end of the 17th century, but the Great Awakening, under the leadership of Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and others, served to revitalize religion in ...(100 of 858 words)

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