Choice 评论
Whereas most Americanists approach mid-19th-century literature as an artifact of a democratic culture, Powell (Univ. of Georgia) looks at the ruthlessness evident in conflicts between the reality of multiculturalism in the US and attempts to obliterate it through history, literature, and the US psyche. The period of the American Renaissance (1850-55) saw the prominence of women novelists and the publication of the first novels by an African American and Native American. Powell analyzes not only Hawthorne, Thoreau, and Melville but also Ridge, Stowe, and Brown, seeking the ways the texts of each portray a multicultural US. Calling his criticism "historical multiculturalism," he challenges the Eurocentric conception of the canon and argues for inclusivity rather than the exclusivity practiced by Americanists. He admonishes readers to examine the contrasting cultural voices before making judgments about the US as either democratic or racist. America at the middle of the l9th century witnessed the beginning of the women's movement, debates about slavery, increasing concern about the place of the American Indian, and an influx of immigrants from Ireland, China, and elsewhere. The literature reflected these events, and Powell finds that all these writers struggled with the image of "one" America in a multicultural environment. Upper-division undergraduates and above. G. M. Bataille; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill