Product Description

From a Modernist/Postmodernist perspective, this addresses questions of literary and cultural nationalism. The authors reveal that since the seventeenth century, American writing has reflected the political and historical climate of its time and helped define America's cultural and social parameters.Aboe all they argue that American literature has always been essentially "modern", illustrating this with a broad range of texts: from Poe and Melville to fitzgerald and Proud, to Wallace and Stevens, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Thomas Pynchon.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #148818 in Books
• Published on: 1993-03-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

About the Author
Malcolm Bradbury was a novelist, critic, television dramatist and Emeritus Professor of American Studies at the University of East Anglia. He is author of the novels Eating People Is Wrong (1959); Stepping Westward (1965); The History Man (1975), which won the Royal Society of Literature Heinemann Prize and was adapted as a famous television series; Rates of Exchange (1983), which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Cuts: A Very Short Novel (1987), also televised; and Doctor Criminale (1992).His critical works include The Modern American Novel (1984; revised edition, 1992), No, Not Bloomsbury (essays, 1987), The Modern World: Ten Great Writers (1988), The Modern British Novel (1993) and Dangerous Pilgrimages (1995).He has also edited Modernism (with James McFarlane, 1976), The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories (1988) and The Atlas of Literature (1997). He is the author of a collection of seven stories and nine parodies, entitled Who Do You Think You Are? (1976), and of several works of humour and satire, including Why Come to Slaka? (1986), Unsent Letters (1988; revised edition, 1995) and Mensonge (1987). Many of his books are published by Penguin. In addition, he has written many television plays and the television 'novels' The Gravy Train and The Gravy Train Goes East. He has also adapted several television series, including Tom Sharpe's Porterhouse Blue, Kingsley Amis's The Green Man and Stella Gibbons's Cold Comfort Farm.Malcolm Bradbury was awarded the CBE in 1991 and died in 2000. Richard Ruland is Professor of English and Professor of Comparative Literature at Washington University in St. Louis.

Customer Reviews

A Students' Lifesaver!
As a first year American Literature student I found this book very helpful. Having only studed English Literature in the past, reading this book before embarking on my course enabled me to grasp a few of the concepts of American Literature and contribute to my seminars in a way that would have been impossible without this lifesaver!! A must for any American Literature student and anybody who holds an interest in the subject!

Highly Rec'd.

An authoritative narrative account of American Literary history from - as you might expect - Puritanism to postmodernism.

To the student, I found this book particularly useful in regard to some of the authors that, as an English student, I was less familiar with. Particularly, this book covers the period of writing between 1780-1820 in very good (introductory) detail, while revealing some authors that a nineteenth-century American Literature course may not have time to include at all. However, this is an example of good supplementary reading, I should stress, it is not a theme-orientated exam-focused book by any means.

To the general interest reader, the book is clearly written and will prove an enjoyable read. Clearly, given the length of the book, it goes into relatively little depth, but the economy and clarity of the writing is such that it is surprising how much is packed into this small, almost introductory format.

A reader that is very familiar with the writing of the period may find this book of less interest, although the sheer ease of reading would prove enjoyable and certainly contains interesting insights into comparatively peripheral authors and works other than the acknowledged `big hitters' of American Literature - Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Whitman, etc.

Overall, a true introductory narrative account with all of the advantages and disadvantages associated with this style.