Alexis de Tocqueville asserted that America had no truly great literature, and that American writers merely mimicked the British and European traditions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This new edited collection masterfully refutes Tocqueville's monocultural myopia and reveals the distinctive role American poetry and prose have played in reflecting and passing judgment upon the core values of American democracy. The essays, profiling the work of Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Updike, Edith Wharton, Walt Whitman, Henry James, Willa Cather, Walker Percy, and Tom Wolfe, reveal how America's greatest writers have acted as society's most ardent cheerleaders and its most penetrating critics. Christine Dunn Henderson's exciting new work offers literature as a portal through which to view the philosophical principles that animate America's political order and the mores which either reinforce or undermine them.

The book provides an advanced, accessible text for childhood studies, which is suitable and challenging for those coming from practice, different parts of the world and from a range of disciplines. Key ideas within childhood studies are introduced, from agency to intersectionality to children’s rights. Addressing children and young people under the age of 18, the book combines concepts from seminal texts with challenging, critical views and alternatives, to stimulate readers to develop their own analysis and apply the results to their own interests. It reveals how childhood studies draws on a rich and deserve range of perspectives from child development, educational studies, history, human rights, media studies, philosophy, public health, race and ethnicity studies, to social anthropology. The book is organised around five sections: - foundations of childhood studies - childhood studies meets other disciplines - childhood studies meets children’s rights studies - intersectional perspectives on childhood - childhood studies in practice Each section includes commentaries from international experts based in Australia, Brazil, the UK, the USA and Zimbabwe. The book also includes a range of pedagogical features including guiding questions and challenge tasks, quotes from current and previous students, a glossary of terms, as well as a companion website with self-test quizzes, short videos from the authors, students and international scholars.

The book provides an advanced, accessible text for childhood studies, which is suitable and challenging for those coming from practice, different parts of the world and from a range of disciplines. Key ideas within childhood studies are introduced, from agency to intersectionality to children’s rights. Addressing children and young people under the age of 18, the book combines concepts from seminal texts with challenging, critical views and alternatives, to stimulate readers to develop their own analysis and apply the results to their own interests. It reveals how childhood studies draws on a rich and deserve range of perspectives from child development, educational studies, history, human rights, media studies, philosophy, public health, race and ethnicity studies, to social anthropology. The book is organised around five sections: - foundations of childhood studies - childhood studies meets other disciplines - childhood studies meets children’s rights studies - intersectional perspectives on childhood - childhood studies in practice Each section includes commentaries from international experts based in Australia, Brazil, the UK, the USA and Zimbabwe. The book also includes a range of pedagogical features including guiding questions and challenge tasks, quotes from current and previous students, a glossary of terms, as well as a companion website with self-test quizzes, short videos from the authors, students and international scholars.