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<p>List of Illustrations vii</p> <p>Timeline viii</p> <p>Acknowledgments xxii</p> <p>Introduction 1</p> <p><b>1 Big 6</b></p> <p>Expansion and its Discontents 12</p> <p>The City 19</p> <p>Representing Nature 36</p> <p>Apocalypse 43</p> <p>The Sense of Place 48</p> <p><b>2 Rich 60</b></p> <p>Weber and Veblen: Reasons to Work and Reasons to Spend 66</p> <p>USA 71</p> <p>Work and Identity 79</p> <p>Labor Reform 91</p> <p>Consumption and Identity 99</p> <p><b>3 New 110</b></p> <p>Beginning Anew: Crevecoeur and Hawthorne 115</p> <p>Young America 119</p> <p>Making It New I: Literary Modernism 128</p> <p>Making It New II: The Other Arts 149</p> <p><b>4 Free 165</b></p> <p>The Multiple Meanings of Freedom 170</p> <p>War and the Affirmation of American Values 173</p> <p>Writing War 180</p> <p>Upstream Against the Mainstream 187</p> <p>“An Inescapable Network of Mutuality” 203</p> <p>Notes 211</p> <p>Websites for Further Study of American Literature and Culture 215</p> <p>Bibliography 217</p> <p>Index 231</p>

"To call this an 'introduction' or 'guide' to its topic is accurate but modest...McDonald does not attempt to redefine texts so much as portray their coincidental nature...Highly Recommended." <i>Choice</i>

<b>Gail McDonald</b> is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Southampton. She is the author of <i>Learning to Be Modern: Pound, Eliot, and the American University</i> (1993). She is also a Founder and Past President of the Modernist Studies Association.

Say “America” and certain adjectives come readily to mind. Because of the nation’s wealth, energy, and global presence during the twentieth century, almost everyone has a view of America. This introduction to American literature and culture addresses four common conceptions of the United States: that it is “big,” “rich,” “new,” and “free.” Designed to illustrate the artistic and social climate in the USA from 1900 to 1960, the book discusses a range of artistic and cultural productions from the period that reinforce, revise, dispute, or deny these commonly held views of the country.<br /> <p>Each of the book’s four sections begins with a series of quotations from literary and other sources of the period, selected to emphasize a range of ideas about America. Within each section, history, popular culture, literature, and other art forms are then juxtaposed in a way that fosters discussion, questioning, and continued study. An appendix to the volume includes a list of primary works for further reading and a selective bibliography of secondary works on American literature and culture, including relevant websites. The book also features a timeline of the chief events -- political, social, and artistic.</p>

"To call this an 'introduction' or 'guide' to its topic is accurate but modest...McDonald does not attempt to redefine texts so much as portray their coincidental nature...Highly Recommended." <i>Choice</i>

GB