A Cultural History of the American Novel: Henry James to William Faulkner (Paperback)

by David L. Minter (Author) "Novelists as different as Henry James and Theodore Dreiser began the twentieth century as they ended the nineteenth, torn by conflicting allegiances..." (more)
Key Phrases: documentary literature, general bibliography, United States, New York, Dos Passos (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"It [the book] gives contemporary scholars and students a desperately needed sense of place and position from which to view and understand the origins of our dominant literary and intellectual tradition. ...Minter balances a broad and thorough range of works and authors with in-depth, detailed, and persuasive readings of individual texts. ...Minter brings fresh insights to his historical and literary materials through acute critical intelligence, informed historical consciousness, and penchant for developing fascinating juxtapositions and relations." Modernity

"David Minter's book is a model of the way literary history should be done...Minter's elegant writing makes the book a pleasure to read." John T. Irwin, Johns Hopkins University

"...A Cultural History of the American Novel approximates a luminous archaeology of the burgeoning modernist period, uncovering the spectral relations between culture, cultural production, and the socio-political pressures of the times....Given the wide range of such powerful insights and 'cultural readings,' Minter's book will undoubtedly prove valuable not only to scholars of American literary history but also to anyone interested in understanding the all too often invisible connections between cultural production, 'real' people and 'real issues'--such as racism, scientific/technological invention, discovery, ethnicity, borders, responsibility, freedom, World War. hope, assent and democracy." Carlton Smith, American Literature

Product Description
A Cultural History of the American Novel interweaves a wide selection of the novels of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with a series of cultural events ranging from Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show to the "Southern Renaissance" of the 1930s. Minter rereads the novels of the period as works of art that arise from and that remain embedded in culture, arguing conversely that cultural events differ in degree but not in kind from novels. Portrayed as provocative fusions of the real and the imagined, novels and events are made to yield insight into the structures and procedures of American society as well as the structures and procedures of the American imagination, during a critical era of national transformation.

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• Paperback: 292 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (June 13, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521467497
• ISBN-13: 978-0521467490
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: No customer reviews yet. Be the first.
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,307,106 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
  
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• In-Print Editions: Hardcover  |  All Editions