Annihilated Spaces: American Literature and American Society

Abstract

Annihilated Space uses American literature to understand our social history. Flexible and inclusive, it shows multiple ways in which national fiction, drama, journals and poetry reveal us. The study builds upon a lifetime of scholarship and experience in areas as diverse as contemporary conditions among Native American peoples, the social structure of the audience for “classical” music, the history of American art, street life in Mexico City and, of course, American literature and the American experience. It suggests approaches that “work” even on pieces set outside the United States, in one case revealing American social history in a novel with no American characters. Some works treated in this lively discussion are acknowledged masterpieces. A few are things critics generally dislike—but they can be entertaining to discuss, and very useful to an open-minded student of society.