To Wake the Nations: Race in the Making of American Literature

By Eric J. Sundquist

Book Overview

This powerful book argues that White culture in America does not exist apart from Black culture. The revolution of the rights of man that established America collided long ago with the system of slavery, and we have been trying to re-establish a steady course for ourselves ever since. To Wake the Nations is urgent and rousing: we have integrated our buses, schools, and factories, but not the canon of American literature. That is the task Eric Sundquist has assumed in a book that ranges from politics to literature, from Uncle Remus to African-American spirituals. But the hallmark of this volume is a re-evaluation of the glory years of American literature - from 1830 to 1930 - that shows how White literature and Black literature form a single interwoven tradition.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674893301
• ISBN13: 9780674893306
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Belknap Press
• Length: 720 Pages
• Weight: 2.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.5" x 6.5"