Promotional Information

Here is a reader that culls the most important, brilliant, and groundbreaking pieces of literary criticism on a comparatist approach to American Studies and offers them to readers in one binding. It is a significant, timely critical achievement, and it is certain to be praised by students and scholars alike. -- Joel Pace, University of Wisconsin Recent events in the global political arena have led to a revaluation in the study of the Atlantic literatures and cultures. Manning and Taylor's reader brings together a wide range of criticism, from Rene Wellek to Wai Chee Dimock, to show that our understanding of those literatures and cultures is freshly derived yet firmly rooted. The book has a substantial introductory chapter and is shrewdly organised into six theoretical and thematic groups, each given a perceptive prologue. It will be required reading for years to come. -- Robert Lawson-Peebles, University of Exeter

About the Author

Susan Manning is Grierson Professor of English and director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh. Andrew Taylor is a lecturer in American Literature at the University of Edinburgh.