In firm agreement with Henry Steele Commager’s observation that Henry Adams illuminates, better than any of his contemporaries,” the course of American history, William Wasserstrom appraises the force of Adams’s mind in styling, dramatizing, and embodying a postmodern myth of disintegration and chaos. Focusing on Adams and analyzing literature that reviews the myth of disintegration, Wasserstrom records the decline of the doctrine of perfectability as a critical feature of national sensibility. This he sees as a central trait shared by generations of writers who characteristically associated their private aspirations as artists with the American dream. Through literary and cultural history he inquires into the character of a society whose leading writers identify their personal fates with the progress of civilization in the United States.
Wasserstrom explores the fiction of Irving, Cooper, Hawthorne, Stowe, Howells, Henry James, William James, Stephen Crane, Henry Adams, Eugene O’Neill, D. H. Lawrence, Stein, Fitzgerald, William Carlos Williams, and Kenneth Burke.
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William Wasserstrom is Professor of English at Syracuse University.
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. First Edition. Very good hardcover copy, from a personal collection (NOT ex-library). Binding tight and sturdy; text clean; corners sharp. No dust jacket, as issued. Exterior looks very nice. Ships from Dinkytown in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Seller Inventory # 278267
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good+. Dust Jacket Condition: No Dust Jacket. Brown hard covers with spine end bumping, in very good++ condition with a tight binding and a clean, bright interior. "Focusing on Adams and analyzing literature that reviews the myth of disin-tegration, Wasserstrom records the de-cline of the doctrine of perfectability as a critical feature of national sensibility. "; 0.9 x 9.1 x 6.3 Inches; 269 pages. Seller Inventory # 6669
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Almost Like New. No Jacket. First Printing. Book is a clean tight unmarked copy. Seller Inventory # 007618
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good +. No Jacket. First Printing. Book is a clean tight unmarked copy. Board corner edges are bumped. Seller Inventory # 001927