A new literary history of America

Title:

ISBN:

9780674035942

Publication Information:

Cambridge, Mass. : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009.

Physical Description:

xxvii, 1095 p. : ill. ; 26 cm.

Contents:

1507, the name "America" appears on a map / Toby Lester -- 1521 Mexico in America / Kirsten Silva Gruesz -- 1536, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca / Ilan Stavans -- 1585, "Counterfeited according to the truth" / Michael Gaudio -- 1607, Fear and love in the Virginia colony / Adam Goodheart -- 1630, A city upon a hill / Elizabeth Winthrop -- A nearer neighbor to the Indians / Ted Widmer -- 1666, Anne Bradstreet / Wai Chee Dimock -- 1670, The American jeremiad / Emory Elliott ; The stamp of God's image / Jason D. LaFountain -- 1673, The Jesuit relations / Laurent Dubois -- 1683, Francis Daniel Pastorius / Alfred L. Brophy -- 1692, The Salem witchcraft trials / Susan Castillo -- 1693, Edward Taylor / Werner Sollors -- 1700, Samuel Sewall's "The selling of Joseph" / David Blight -- 1722, Benjamin Franklin, the Silence Dogood letters / Joyce E. Chaplin -- 1740, The Great Awakening / Joanne Van Der Woude -- Late 1740s, Two national anthems / John Picker -- 1765, Michel-Guillaume Jean de Crevecoeur / Leo Damrosch -- 1773, Phillis Wheatley / Rafia Zafar -- 1776, The Declaration of Independence / Frank Kelleter -- 1784, Charles Willson Peale / Michael Leja -- 1787, James Madison's "Notes of the debates in the federal convention" / Mitchell Meltzer -- 1787-90, John Adams's "Discourses on Davila" / John Diggins -- 1791, Philip Freneau and "The National Gazette" / Jeffrey L. Pasley -- 1796, Washington's farewell address / Francois Furstenberg -- 1798, Mary Rowlandson and the Alien and Sedition Acts / Nancy Armstrong -- 1798, American Gothic / Marc Amfreville --

1801, Jefferson's first inaugural address / Jan Ellis Lewis -- 1804, The matter of Haiti / Kaima Glover - 1809, Cupola of the world / Judith Richardson -- 1819, The Missouri crisis / John Stauffer -- 1820, Landscape with birds / Christoph Irmscher -- 1821, Sequoyah, the Cherokee syllabary / Lisa Brooks ; Junius Brutus Booth / Coppelia Kahn -- 1822, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, the Ojibwe firefly, and Longfellow's "Hiawatha" / Davie Treuer -- 1852, Thomas Cole and the Hudson River School / Alan Wallach -- 1826, Songs of the republic / Steve Erickson -- Cooper's Leatherstocking tales / Richard Hutson -- 1826-1927 Transnational poetry / Stephen Burt -- 1827, Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon / Terryl L. Givens -- 1828, David Walker's "Appeal, in four articles" / Tommie Shelby -- 1830, Jump Jim Crow / W. T. Lhamon, Jr. -- 1831, The "Cherokee Nation" decision / Philip Deloria -- 1832, President Jackson's bank veto / Dan Feller -- 1835, "Democracy in America" / Ted Widmer ; William Gilmore Simms's "The Yemassee" / Jeffrey Johnson ; "The Sacred harp" / Sean Wilentz -- 1836, The Alamo and Texas border writing / Norma E. Cantu ; Richard Henry Dana, Jr. / Kirsten Silva Gruesz -- 1837, Ralph Waldo Emerson's "The American Schollar" / James Conant -- 1838, "The Divinity School Address / Herwig Friedl ; The slave narrative / Caille Millner -- 1841, "The murders in the Rue Morgue" / Robert Clark -- 1846, James Russell Lowell's "Biglow papers" / Shelley Streeby ; Henry David Thoreau / Jonathan Arac --

1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville / Clark Blaise -- 1851, "Moby-Dick" / Greil Marcus ; "Uncle Tom's Cabin" / Beverly Lowry -- 1852, Hawthorne's "Blithedale romance" and utopian communities / Winifried Fluck ; Frederick Douglass's "What to the slave is the Fourth of July?" / Liam Kennedy -- 1854, Maria Cummins and sentimental fiction / Cindy Weinstein -- 1855, Walt Whitman's "Leaves of grass" / Angus Fletcher -- 1858, The Lincoln-Douglas debates / Michael T. Gilmore -- 1859, The science of the Indian / Scott Richard Lyons -- 1861, Emily Dickinson / Susan Stewart -- 1862, The journeys of "Little women" / Shirley Samuels -- 1865, Lincoln's 2nd inaugural address / Ted Widmer ; "Conditions of repose" / Robin Kelsey -- 1869, Carl Schurz / Michael Boyden -- 1872, All men and women are created equal / Laura Wexler -- 1875, The Winchester rifle / Merritt Roe Smith -- 1876, Melville in the dark / Kenneth W. Warren ; The art of telephony / Avital Ronell -- 1878, "How to make our ideas clear" / Christopher Hoodway -- 1879, John Muir and nature writing / Scott Slovic -- 1881, Henry James's "Portait of a Lady" / Alide Cagidemetrio -- 1884, Mark Twain's hairball / Ishmael Reed ; The linotype machine / Lisa Gitelman ; The Southwest imagined / Leah Dilworth -- 1885, The problem of error / James Conant ; Limits to violence / James Dawes ; Writing New Orleans / Andrei Codrescu -- 1888, The introduction of motion pictures / Jonathan Lethem -- 1889, "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court / Yael Schacher -- 1893, Chief Simon Pokagon and Native American literatuer / David Treuer -- 1895 / Ida B. Wells's "A Red Record" / Jacqueline Goldsby -- 1896, Paul Laurence Dunbar's "Lyrics of lowly life" / Judith Jackson Fossett ; Queen Lili'uokalani / Rob Wilson -- 1897, The Robert Gould Shaw and 54th Regiment Monument / Richard Powers -- 1898, Literature and imperialism / Amy Kaplan -- 1899, "McTeague" and 1924, "Greed" / Gilberto Perez --

1900, Henry Adams / T. J. Jackson Lears ; "The Wizard of Oz" / Gerald Early ; 1900, "Sister Carrie" and 1905, "The House of Mirth" / Farah Jasmine Griffin -- 1901 & 1903, The problem of the color line / Arnold Rampersad -- 1903, "The real American has not yet arrived" / Aviva Taubenfeld ; The invention of the blues / Luc Sante ; One sees what one sees / Daniel Albright -- 1904, Henry James in America / Ross Posnock -- 1905, "Little Nemo in Slumberland" / Kerry Roeder ; 1906, The Azusa Street revival / RJ Smith ; The San Francisco Earthquake / Kathleen Moran -- "Alexander's Ragtime Band" / Philip Furia -- 1912, Lifeboats cut adrift / Alan Ackerman ; The lure of impossible things / Heather Love ; Tarzan begins his reign / Gerald Early -- 1913, A modernist moment / Bonnie Costello -- 1915, D. W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation" / Richard Schickel ; Robert Frost / Christian Wiman -- 1917, The philosopher and the millionaire / Richard J. Bernstein -- 1920, Mamie Smith's "Crazy Blues" / Daphne A. Brooks -- 1921, Jean Toomer / Elizabeth Alexander -- 1922, T. S. Eliot and D. H. Lawrence / Anita Patterson -- 1923, Chaplinesque / David Thomson -- 1942, F. O. Mattiessen meets Russell Cheney / Robert Polito ; The Johnson-Reed Act and ethnic literature / Yael Schacher -- 1925, "The Great Gatsby" / Lan Tran ; Sinclair Lewis / Jeffrey Ferguson ; The Scopes trial / Michael Kazin ; Dorothy Parker / Catherine Keyser -- 1926, "Fire!" / Carla Kaplan ; Hardboiled / Walter Mosley ; The Book-of-the-Month Club / Joan Shelly Rubin -- 1927, Carl Sandburg and "The American Songbag" / Paul Muldoon ; "Free to develop their faculties" / Jeffrey Rosen -- 1928, Dilsey Gibson goes to church / Werner Sollors ; John Dos Passos / Phoebe Kosman ; The mouse that whistled / Karal Ann Marling -- 1930, "The Silent Enemy" / Micah Treuer ; Grant Wood's "American Gothic" / Sarah Vowell -- 1931, Nevada legalizes gambling / David Thomson -- 1932, Edmund Wilson's "The American jitters" / Anthony Grafton ; Arthur Mill / Andrea Most -- 1932, The River Rouge plant and industrial beauby / John M. Staudenmaiser, S.J. ; Ned Cobb / Robert Cantwell -- 1933, "Baby Face" is censored / Stephanie Zacharek ; FDR's first Fireside Chat / Paula Rabinowitz -- 1934, Robert Penn Warren / Howell Raines -- 1935, The Popular Front / Angela Miller ; The skyscraper / Sarah Whiting ; Alcoholics Anonymous / Michael Tolkin ; "Porgy and Bess" / John Rockwell -- 1936, "Gone with the Wind" and "Absalom, Absalom!" / Carolyn Porter ; Two days in Harlem / Adam Bradley ; "Life" begins / Michael Lesy -- 1938, Superman / Douglas Wolk ; Jelly Roll Morton speaks / Marybeth Hamilton -- 1939, Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" / Robert O'Meally ; Up from invisibility / Josef Jarab -- 1940, "No way like the American way" / Erika Doss -- 1940-44, Preston Sturges / Douglas McGrath -- 1941, An insolent style / Carrie Tirado Bramen ; "Citizen Kane" / Joseph McBride ; The word "multicultural" / Werner Sollors -- 1943, Hemmingway's paradise, Hemingway's prose / Keith Taylor -- 1944, The 2nd Bill of Rights / Cass R. Sunstein -- 1945, Bebop / Ingrid Monson ; Thomas Pynchon and modern war / Glenda Carpio ; The atom bomb / Sharon Ghamari-Tabrizi -- 1946, Integrating the military / Gerald Early -- 1947, Tennessee Williams / Camille Paglia -- 1948, Norbert Wiener's "Cybernetics" / David A. Mindell ; Saul Bellow / Ruth Wisse -- 1949-50, "The birth of cool" / Ted Gioia --

1950, "Damned busy painting" / T. J. Clark -- 1951, A poet among painters / Mark Ford ; "The Catcher in the Rye" / Gish Jen ; James Jones's "From Here to Eternity" / Lindsay Waters ; A soft voice / M. Lynn Weiss -- 1952, Elia Kazan and the blacklist in Hollywood / Michael Ventura ; C. L. R. James / Donald E. Pease -- 1953, The song in country music / Dave Hickey -- 1954, Wallace Stevens's "Collected poems" / Helen Vendler -- 1955, "The self-respect of my people" / Monica L. Miller ; A. J. Liebling and the Marciano-Moore fight / Carlo Rotella ; A generation in miniature / Richard Candida Smith ; Nabokov's "Lolita" / Stephen Schiff -- 1956, "Roll Over Beethoven" / James Miller -- 1957, Dr. Seuss / Philip Nel -- 1959, "Nobody's perfect" / William J. Mann -- 1960, "Psycho" / William Beard ; More than a game / Michael MacCambridge -- 1961, JFK's inaugural address and "Catch-22" / Charles Taylor ; The author as advertisement / David Thomson -- 1962, Bob Dylan writes "Song to Woody" / Joshua Clover ; "White Elephant Art vs. Termite Art" / Howard Hampton -- 1963, "Letter from Birmingham Jail" / George Hutchinson -- 1964, Robert Lowell's "For the Union Dead" / Peter Sacks ; "The last stand on earth" / Gary Kamiya -- 1965, The Council on Interracial Books for Children / Dianne Johnson ; "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" / David Bradley -- 1968, Norman Mailer / Mary Gaitskill ; The illusory babels of language / Hal Foster ; The plight of conservative literature / Michael Kimmage -- 1969, Eilzabeth Bishop's "Complete poems" / Laura Quinney ; The first Asian Americans / Hua Hsu ; The eye of Vietnam / Thi Phuong-Lan Bui -- 1970, Maya Angelou, Toni MOrrison, Alice Walker / Cheryl A. Wall ; Linda Lovelace / Anne Marlowe -- 1973, Loisaida literature / Frances R. Aparicio ; Adrienne Rich's "Diving into the Wreck" / Maureen N. McLane -- 1975, Gayl Jones / Robert O'Meally -- 1981, Toni Morrison / Farah Jasmine Griffin -- 1982, Edmund White's "A Boy's Own Story" / Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum ; "Wild Style" / Mua Hsu ; Maya Lin's wall / Anne M. Wagner ; Harriet Wilson / Saidiya V. Hartman -- 1985, Henry Roth / Mario Materassi -- 1987, Maxine Hong Kingston's "Tripmaster Monkey" / Seio Young Chu -- 1995, Philip Roth / Hana Wirth-Nesher -- 2001, 21st-century free verse / Stephen Burt -- 2003, Richard Powers's "The Time of Our Singing" / Greil Marcus -- 2005, Hurricane Katrina / Greil Marcus & Werner Sollors -- 2008, Barack O'Bama / Kara Walker.

Subject Term:

American literature -- History and criticism.

Geographic Term:

United States -- Civilization.

Added Author:

Marcus, Greil.

Sollors, Werner.

Holds:

Available:*

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Bound With These Titles

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Summary

America is a nation making itself up as it goes along-a story of discovery and invention unfolding in speeches and images, letters and poetry, unprecedented feats of scholarship and imagination. In these myriad, multiform, endlessly changing expressions of the American experience, the authors and editors of this volume find a new American history.

In more than two hundred original essays, A New Literary History of America brings together the nation's many voices. From the first conception of a New World in the sixteenth century to the latest re-envisioning of that world in cartoons, television, science fiction, and hip hop, the book gives us a new, kaleidoscopic view of what "Made in America" means. Literature, music, film, art, history, science, philosophy, political rhetoric-cultural creations of every kind appear in relation to each other, and to the time and place that give them shape.

The meeting of minds is extraordinary as T. J. Clark writes on Jackson Pollock, Paul Muldoon on Carl Sandburg, Camille Paglia on Tennessee Williams, Sarah Vowell on Grant Wood's American Gothic , Walter Mosley on hard-boiled detective fiction, Jonathan Lethem on Thomas Edison, Gerald Early on Tarzan , Bharati Mukherjee on The Scarlet Letter , Gish Jen on Catcher in the Rye , and Ishmael Reed on Huckleberry Finn . From Anne Bradstreet and John Winthrop to Philip Roth and Toni Morrison, from Alexander Graham Bell and Stephen Foster to Alcoholics Anonymous, Life , Chuck Berry, Alfred Hitchcock, and Ronald Reagan, this is America singing, celebrating itself, and becoming something altogether different, plural, singular, new.

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

The full national-literary character of the United States is on display in this mighty history and reference work for our time. Written by a distinguished team, under the sure-handed editorship of musicologist and historian Marcus and Sollors, Harvard professor of English and African-American studies, this volume begins with America's first appearance on a map and concludes with the election of President Obama. Among the more than 200 contributors are Bharati Mukherjee (on The Scarlet Letter), Camille Paglia (on Tennessee Williams) and Ishmael Reed (on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn). The book includes entries on not strictly literary themes: the first U.S. natural history collection of painter Charles Willson Peale; the invention of the blues; and the art of Grant Wood. This balancing act is even less sure-footed as we enter present time with entries on Some Like It Hot and the National Football League. Although it is impossible to include every important author in one volume, Sylvia Plath barely gets a nod as does James Merrill. Such are the blemishes on exquisite skin. Overall, this is an astounding achievement in multiculturalism and American studies, which in the age of Google and the Internet lights the way toward serious interpretive reference publishing. 27 illus. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

Of course it's hefty; it's a broadly cultural history of America with a literary bent, an avid and provocative collaboration that tracks the American story not only through works of American literature, classic and forgotten, but also via music, art, pop culture, speeches, letters, religious tracts, photographs, and Supreme Court decisions. Versatile social critic and historian Marcus, Harvard University professor of English and African American studies Sollors, and their illustrious board of editors assembled more than 200 commissioned essays, which meander chronologically from 1507 and the first appearance on a map of the name America to Barack Obama's election. In between is a dazzling array of inquiries into Gone with the Wind and Invisible Man, The Wizard of Oz and the blues, hard-boiled detective stories and Mickey Mouse, Howl and Miles Davis, nature writing and Zora Neale Hurston. With such contributors as Elizabeth Alexander, Mary Gaitskill, Bharati Mukherjee, Richard Powers, Ishmael Reed, David Thomson, David Treuer, and John Edgar Wideman, this is an adventurous, jazzily choral, and kaleidoscopic book of interpretations, illuminations, and revitalized history.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2009 Booklist

Choice Review

Marcus (a recognized music journalist and cultural critic) and Sollors (Harvard Univ., acclaimed for his pioneering work in ethnic American literature) here compile 219 widely divergent essays to form a collection analyzing the "matrix of American culture." The volume contributes to the field by extending expressions of voice in "whatever form" to chronicle a historical trajectory of events and ideas impacting literary forms, figures, and (often-contestatory) narratives of a nation. In their introduction, the editors stress that their objective "is not to smash a canon or create a new one" but rather to broaden critical inquiry to include religious tracts, diaries, public debates, Supreme Court decisions, children's fiction, war memorials, music, film, comic strips, maps, and cybernetics. Chronologically arranged, these essays, especially those addressing technology via the Winchester rifle and institutions like Alcoholics Anonymous, indicate pivotal turning points in literary history. Significantly, many of the 201 contributors are distinguished scholars from American studies, philosophy, and architecture, along with poets, novelists, journalists, screenwriters, and artists (one finds here Gish Jen, Walter Mosley, Bharati Mukherjee, Richard Powers, Camille Paglia, and Ishmael Reed), thus making the volume valuable as a primary as well as a secondary resource. Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty. M. L. Mock University of Pittburgh at Johnstown

Library Journal Review

Marcus (Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll Music) and Sollors (English & Afro-American studies, Harvard) trace through literature the dynamism of American society and culture spanning 500 years, from the first time the name America appears on a map (1507) to the election of Barack Obama as president. The editors include over 200 chronologically arranged essays, original to this volume and including Camille Paglia on Tennessee Williams, Paula Rabinowitz on FDR's first fireside chat, David Treuer on Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha, Michael Tolkin on Alcoholics Anonymous, and Paul Muldoon on Carl Sandburg. The editors selected the entries from a pool of over 400 essays, requiring that each deal with a turning point, a new question, or a time when "what before seemed impossible came to seem necessary or inevitable." Verdict No single volume can fully capture the range of a nation's literary history, but this book succeeds in highlighting new ideas and providing a starting point for further investigation. Above all, it is a pleasure to read.-Mark Alan Williams, Library of Congress (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Timeline

IntroductionGreil Marcus and Werner Sollors 1507

The name "America" appears on a mapToby Lester 1521, August 13

Mexico in AmericaKirsten Silva Gruesz 1536, July 24

Alvar Núñez Cabeza de VacaIlan Stavans 1585

"Counterfeited according to the truth"Michael Gaudio 1607

Fear and love in the Virginia colonyAdam Goodheart 1630

A city upon a hillElizabeth Winthrop 1643

A nearer neighbor to the IndiansTed Widmer 1666, July 10

Anne BradstreetWai Chee Dimock 1670

The American jeremiadEmory Elliott 1670

The stamp of God's imageJason D. LaFountain 1673

The Jesuit relationsLaurent Dubois 1683

Francis Daniel PastoriusAlfred L. Brophy 1692

The Salem witchcraft trialsSusan Castillo 1693-94, March 4

Edward TaylorWerner Sollors 1700

Samuel Sewall, The Selling of JosephDavid Blight 1722

Benjamin Franklin, The Silence Dogood LettersJoyce E. Chaplin 1740

The Great AwakeningJoanne van der Woude 1740s, September 13-14 1814, Yankee Doodle goes to town

Francis Scott Key writes The Star-Spangled Banner 1765, December 23

Michel-Guillaume Jean de CrèvecoeurLeo Damrosch 1773, September

Phillis WheatleyRafia Zafar 1776

The Declaration of IndependenceFrank Kelleter 1784, June

Charles Willson PealeMichael Leja 1787

James Madison, Notes of the Debates in the Federal ConventionMitchell Meltzer 1787-1790

John Adams, Discourses on DavilaJohn Diggins 1791

Philip Freneau and The National GazetteJefrey L. Pasley 1796

Washington's farewell addressFrançois Furstenberg 1798

Mary Rowlandson and the Alien and Sedition ActsNancy Armstrong 1798

American gothicMarc Amfreville 1801, March 4

Jefferson's first inaugural addressJan Ellen Lewis 1804, January

The matter of HaitiKaiama Glover 1809

Cupola of the worldJudith Richardson 1819

The Missouri crisisJohn Stauffer 1820, November 27

Landscape with birdsChristoph Irmscher 1821

Sequoyah, the Cherokee syllabaryLisa Brooks 1821, June 30

Junius Brutus BoothCoppelia Kahn 1822

Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, the Ojibwe firefly, and Longfellow's HiawathaDavid Treuer 1825, November

Thomas Cole and the Hudson RiverAlan Wallach 1826, July 4

Songs of the republicSteve Erickson 1826

Cooper's Leatherstocking talesRichard Hutson 1826; 1927

Transnational poetryStephen Burt 1827

Joseph Smith and the Book of MormonTerryl L. Givens 1828

David Walker, Appeal, in Four ArticlesTommie Shelby 1830, May 21

Jump Jim CrowW. T. Lhamon, Jr. 1831, March 5

The Cherokee Nation decisionPhilip Deloria 1832, July 10

President Jackson's bank vetoDan Feller 1835, January

Democracy in AmericaTed Widmer 1835

William Gilmore Simms, The YemasseeeJefrey Johnson 1835

The Sacred HarpSean Wilentz 1836, February 23-March 6

The Alamo and Texas border writingNorma E. Cantú 1836, February 28

Richard Henry Dana, Jr.Kirsten Silva Gruesz 1837, August 31

Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The American Scholar"James Conant 1838, July 15

"The Divinity School Address"Herwig Friedl 1838, September 3

The slave narrativeCaille Millner 1841

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue"Robert Clark 1846, June

James Russell Lowell's Biglow PapersShelley Streeby 1846, late July

Henry David ThoreauJonathan Arac 1850

The Scarlet LetterBharati Mukherje 1850, July 19

Margaret Fuller and the Transcendentalist MovementLawrence Buell 1850, August 5

Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman MelvilleClark Blaise 1851, Moby-Dick 1851

Uncle Tom's CabinBeverly Lowry 1852

Hawthorne's Blithedale Romance and utopian communitiesWinfried Fluck 1852, July 5

Frederick Douglass, "What to the slave is the Fourth of July?"Liam Kennedy 1854, March

Maria Cummins and sentimental fictionCindy Weinstein 1855

Walt Whitman, Leaves of GrassAngus Fletcher 1858

The Lincoln-Douglas debatesMichael T. Gilmore 1859

The science of the IndianScott Richard Lyons 1861

Emily DickinsonSusan Stewart 1862, December 13

The journeys of Little WomenShirley Samuels 1865, March 4

Lincoln's second inaugural addressTed Widmer 1865

"Conditions of repose"Robin Kelsey 1869, March 4

Carl SchurzMichael Boyden 1872, November 5

All men and women are created equalLaura Wexler 1875

The Winchester RifleMerritt Roe Smith 1876, January 6

Melville in the darkKenneth W. Warren 1876, March 10

The art of telephonyAvital Ronell 1878

"How to Make Our Ideas Clear"Christopher Hookway 1879

John Muir and nature writingScott Slovic 1881, January 24

Henry James, Portrait of a LadyAlide Cagidemetrio 1884

Mark Twain's hairballIshmael Red 1884, July

The Linotype machineLisa Gitelman 1884, November

The Southwest imaginedLeah Dilworth 1885

The problem of errorJames Conant 1885, July

Limits to violenceJames Dawes 1885, October

Writing New OrleansAndrei Codrescu 1888

The introduction of motion pictures 1889, August 28

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's CourtYael Schacher 1893

Chief Simon Pokagon and Native American literatureDavid Treuer 1895

Ida B. Wells, A Red RecordJacqueline Goldsby 1896

Paul Laurence Dunbar, Lyrics of Lowly LifeJudith Jackson Fossett 1896, September 6

Queen Lili'uokalaniRob Wilson 1897, Memorial Day

The Robert Gould Shaw and 54th Regiment MonumentRichard Powers 1898, June 22

Literature and imperialismAmy Kaplan 1899; 1924

McTeague and GreedGilberto Perez 1900

Henry AdamsT. J. Jackson Lears 1900

The Wizard of OzGerald Early 1900; 1905

Sister Carrie and The House of MirthFarah Jasmine Grifin 1901

Charles W. Chesnutt, The Marrow of TraditionJohn Edgar Wideman 1901-1903

The problem of the color line 1903, May 5

"The real American has not yet arrived"Aviva Taubenfeld 1903

The invention of the bluesLuc Sante 1903

One sees what one seesDaniel Albright 1904, August 30

Henry James in AmericaRoss Posnock 1905, October 15

Little Nemo in SlumberlandKatherine Roeder 1906, April 9

The Azusa Street revivalR. J. Smith 1906, April 18 , 5:14 a.m.

The San Francisco EarthquakeKathleen Moran 1911

"Alexander's Ragtime Band"Philip Furia 1912, April 15

Lifeboats cut adriftAlan Ackerman 1912

The lure of impossible thingsHeather Love 1912

Tarzan begins his reignGerald Early 1913

A modernist momentBonnie Costello 1915

D. W. Griffith, The Birth of a NationRichard Schickel 1915

Robert FrostChristian Wiman 1917

The philosopher and the millionaireRichard J. Bernstein 1920, August 10

Mamie Smith's "Crazy Blues"Daphne A. Brooks 1921

Jean ToomerElizabeth Alexander 1922

T. S. Eliot and D. H. LawrenceAnita Patterson October 1923, Chaplinesque 1924

F. O. Matthiessen meets Russell CheneyRobert Polito 1924, May 26

The Johnson-Reed Act and ethnic literatureYael Schacher 1925

The Great GatsbyLan Tran 1925, June

Sinclair LewisJefrey Ferguson 1925, July

The Scopes trialMichael Kazin 1925, August 16

Dorothy ParkerCatherine Keyser 1926

Fire!!Carla Kaplan 1926

HardboiledWalter Mosley 1926

The Book-of-the-Month ClubJoan Shelley Rubin 1927

Carl Sandburg and The American SongbagPaul Muldoon 1927, May 16

"Free to develop their faculties"Jefrey Rosen 1928, April 8, Easter Sunday

Dilsey Gibson goes to churchWerner Sollors 1928, Summer

John Dos PassosPhoebe Kosman 1928, November 18

The mouse that whistledKaral Ann Marling 1930

"You're swell!"Robert Gottlieb 1930, March

The Silent EnemyMicah Treuer October 1930

Grant Wood's American Gothic" 1931, March 19

Nevada legalizes gamblingDavid Thomson 1932

Edmund Wilson, The American JittersAnthony Grafton 1932

Arthur MillerAndrea Most 1932, April or May

The River Rouge plant and industrial beautyJohn M. Staudenmaier, S.J. 1932, Christmas

Ned CobbRobert Cantwell 1933

Baby Face is censoredStephanie Zacharek 1933, March

FDR's first Fireside ChatPaula Rabinowitz 1934, September

Robert Penn WarrenHowell Raines 1935

The Popular FrontAngela Miller 1935

The skyscraperSarah Whiting 1935, June 10

Alcoholics AnonymousMichael Tolkin 1935, October 10

Porgy and BessJohn Rockwell 1936

Gone with the Wind and Absalom, Absalom! 1936, July 5

Two days in HarlemAdam Bradley 1936, November 23

Life beginsMichael Lesy 1938

SupermanDouglas Wolk 1938, May

Jelly Roll Morton speaksMarybeth Hamilton 1939

Billie Holiday, "Strange Fruit"Robert O'Meally 1939; 1981

Up from invisibilityJosef Jarab 1940

"No way like the American way"Erika Doss 1940-1944

Preston SturgesDouglas McGrath 1941

An insolent styleCarrie Tirado Bramen 1941

Citizen KaneJoseph McBride 1941

The word "multicultural"Werner Sollors 1943

Hemingway's paradise, Hemingway's proseKeith Taylor 1944

The second Bill of RightsCass R. Sunstein 1945, February

BebopIngrid Monson 1945, April 11

Thomas Pynchon and modern warGlenda Carpio 1945, August 6, 10:45 a.m.

The atom bombSharon Ghamari-Tabrizi 1946, December 5

Integrating the militaryGerald Early December 3 1947 and Tennessee Williams 1948

Norbert Wiener, CyberneticsDavid A. Mindell 1948

Saul BellowRuth Wise 1949-1950

"Birth of the Cool"Ted Gioia 1950, November 28

"Damned busy painting"T. J. Clark 1951

A poet among paintersMark Ford 1951

The Catcher in the Rye 1951

James Jones, From Here to EternityLindsay Waters 1951

A soft voiceM. Lynn Weis 1952, April 12

Elia Kazan and the blacklist in HollywoodMichael Ventura 1952, June 10

C. L. R. JamesDonald E. Pease 1953, January 1

The song in country musicDave Hickey 1954

Wallace Stevens, Collected PoemsHelen Vendler 1955, August 11

"The self-respect of my people"Monica Miller 1955, September 21

A. J. Liebling and the Marciano-Moore fightCarlo Rotella 1955, October 7

A generation in miniatureRichard Cándida Smith 1955, December

Nabokov's LolitaStephen Schif 1956, April 16

"Roll Over Beethoven"James Miller 1957

Dr. SeussPhilip Nel 1959

"Nobody's perfect"William J. Mann 1960

PsychoWilliam Beard 1960, January

More than a gameMichael MacCambridge 1961, January 20

JFK's inaugural address and Catch-22Charles Taylor 1961, July 2

The author as advertisementDavid Thomson 1962

Bob Dylan writes "Song to Woody"Joshua Clover 1962

"White Elephant Art vs. Termite Art"Howard Hampton 1963, April

"Letter from Birmingham Jail"George Hutchinson 1964

Robert Lowell, "For the Union Dead"Peter Sacks October 27 1964

The last stand on Earth 1965, September 11

The Council on Interracial Books for ChildrenDianne Johnson 1965, October

The Autobiography of Malcolm XDavid Bradley 1968

Norman MailerMary Gaitskill 1968, March

The illusory babels of languageHal Foster 1968, August 28

The plight of conservative literatureMichael Kimage 1969

Elizabeth Bishop, Complete PoemsLaura Quinney 1969, January 11

The first Asian AmericansHua Hsu 1969, November 12

The eye of VietnamThi Phuong-Lan Bui 1970

Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Alice WalkerCheryl A. Wall 1970, 1972, Linda Lovelace" 1972

Loisaida literatureFrances R. Aparicio 1973

Adrienne Rich, Diving into the WreckMaureen N. McLane 1975

Gayl JonesRobert O'Meally 1981, March 31

Toni MorrisonFarah Jasmine Grifin 1982

Edmund White, A Boy's Own StorySarah Shun-lien Bynum 1982

Wild StyleHua Hsu 1982

Maya Lin's wallAnne Wagner 1982, November 8

Harriet WilsonSaidiya V. Hartman 1985, April 24

Henry RothMario Materassi 1987

Maxine Hong Kingston, Tripmaster MonkeySeo-Young Chu 1995

Philip RothHana Wirth-Nesher 2001

Twenty-first-century free verseStephen Burt 2003

Richard Powers, The Time of Our SingingGreil Marcus 2005, August 29 and Hurricane Katrina 2008, November 4

Barack ObamaKara Walker

Available:*

Bound With These Titles

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Summary

Summary

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Booklist Review

Choice Review

Library Journal Review

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