Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Literary studies > 19th century
|
Buy Now
Colonizing the Past - Mythmaking and Pre-Columbian Whites in Nineteenth-Century American Writing (Paperback)
Loot Price: R1,149
Discovery Miles 11 490
|
|
Colonizing the Past - Mythmaking and Pre-Columbian Whites in Nineteenth-Century American Writing (Paperback)
Expected to ship within 10 - 15 working days
|
Donate to Against Period Poverty
Total price: R1,169
Discovery Miles: 11 690
|
After the Revolution, Americans realized they lacked the common,
deep, or meaningful history that might bind together their loose
confederation of former colonies into a genuine nation. They had
been conquerors yet colonials, now politically independent yet
culturally subordinate to European history and traditions. To
resolve these paradoxes, some early republic "historians" went so
far as to reconstruct pre-Columbian, transatlantic adventures by
white people that might be employed to assert their rights and
ennoble their identities as Americans.In Colonizing the Past,
Edward Watts labels this impulse "primordialism" and reveals its
consistent presence over the span of nineteenth-century American
print culture in writers ranging from Washington Irving to Mark
Twain. In dozens of texts, Watts tracks episodes in which varying
accounts of pre-Columbian whites attracted widespread attention:
the Welsh Indians, the Lost Tribes of Israel, the white Mound
Builders, and the Vikings, as well as two ancient Irish
interventions. In each instance, public interest was ignited when
representations of the group in question became enmeshed in
concurrent conversations about the nation's evolving identity and
policies. Yet at every turn, counternarratives and public
resistance challenged both the plausibility of the pre-Columbian
whites and the colonialist symbolism that had been evoked to create
a sense of American identity. By challenging the rhetoric of
primordialism and empire building, dissenting writers exposed the
crimes of conquest and white Americans' marginality as
ex-colonials.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
|
|
Email address subscribed successfully.
A activation email has been sent to you.
Please click the link in that email to activate your subscription.