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The Essence of America in 1,095 Pages

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With entries on the porn star Linda Lovelace, the indie film “Wild Style” and Hurricane Katrina, it is clear that “A New Literary History of America” is not your typical Harvard University Press anthology. Although it has many features of an academic compendium — page numbers that reach into four digits and scores of scholarly contributors — this new collection of essays, being released on Wednesday, roams far beyond any standard definition of literature. Aside from compositions that contain the written word, its subjects include war memorials, jazz, museums, comic strips, film, radio, musicals, skyscrapers, cybernetics and photography.

Comments

  1. RickSeptember 23, 2009 at 9:14 PM

    That quite a list of contributors.

    ReplyDelete
  2. NYT PerduSeptember 24, 2009 at 4:43 AM

    I used to read Greil Marcus's lively stuff in "Rolling Stone." This really does look like a "book of everything" (not sure some fits what I think of as literature, but who am I? Maybe a good C'mas gift book.

    ReplyDelete
  3. JAbelSeptember 24, 2009 at 5:21 AM

    I have a book something like that called"Encyclopedia of Southern Culture" from Univ of North Carolina 1989 that weighs in at a hefty 1,634 pages.There is also a massive one on New England that is discounted now in some of the ctalogs.

    ReplyDelete
  4. James FergusonSeptember 24, 2009 at 8:48 AM

    Maybe this book has smaller print.

    ReplyDelete

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