Nineteenth-century America was a sprawling new nation unmoored from precedent and the mainstays of European nationalism. In their search for nationality, Americans sought coherence in a feeling of belonging shared among diverse and scattered strangers. Reading seminal works by Thomas Jefferson, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Walt Whitman, Peter Coviello traces these writers' enthusiasms and their ambivalences about the dream of an intimate nationality, revealing how race and sexuality were used as vehicles for an assumed national coherence.
As correspondent for Newsweek, Michael Hirsh has traveled to every continent, reporting on American foreign policy. Now he draws on his experience to offer an original explanation of America's role in the world and the problems facing the nation today and in the future. Using colorful vignettes and up-close reporting from his coverage of the first two post-Cold War presidents, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Hirsh argues that America has a new role never before played by any nation: it is the world's Uberpower, overseeing the global system from the air, land, sea and, increasingly, from space as well.
Users looking for authoritative and comprehensive information about black history, figures and accomplishments now have a defining and current reference to address their needs. The second edition of the Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History is a much-needed expansion of the 1996 classic and its 2000 supplement. As with the earlier publications, the second edition is aimed at high school and college students, as well as the general reader. Whereas the first edition focused almost exclusively on the United States, this new set identifies and addresses broad themes critical to understanding the texture of the cultures, achievements, challenges and comprise North America, Central and South America and the Caribbean. Readers can find comparative analyses of social movements, languages, religions and family structures in the context of an interdisciplinary framework that fills a substantial gap in studies of this genre. While many articles from the original set have updated content and bibliographies, almost half of the second edition is composed of completely new scholarship.
From colonial fashions and trades to biographies on key historical figures such as Captain John Smith and Thomas Jefferson, this interactive guide blends engaging activities with facts and trivia about early America. Encouraging readers to explore the daily lives of early colonists, common household items are used for such activities as rug braiding, candle making, weather forecasting, and various Native American games. A colonial time line, common terms used in early American life, and a directory of famous historic sites is also included.
This volume complements A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures in English (Edinburgh, 2005) and is the first reference to integrate an authoritative body of work on the political, cultural, and economic contexts of postcolonial literatures originating in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Latin America, and the Philippines. Comprehensive in its geographical scope, the Companion extends from South America and the Caribbean to Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.
