Book Review

The Cambridge History of American Theatre, edited by Don B. Wilmeth and Christopher Bigsby, launches a major effort to address the paucity—in number and currency of methodology—of comprehensive histories in the field. This is the first of three volumes (volume 2, 1870-1945, published in 1999, is also available) that attempt an authoritative and wide-ranging history taking into account developments in literary criticism, cultural analysis, and performance theory over the last fifteen years. Unlike the other recent major contribution, The History of North American Theater by Felicia Hardison Londre and Daniel J. Watermeier (1999), which in a single tome surveys developments in the United States, Mexico, the Caribbean islands, and Canada, The Cambridge History of American Theatre centers on the region that became the United States. The book is organized around particular aspects of theater production traced throughout the period, rather than broadly covered increments of a larger chronology. Spanning multiple volumes and assigning the chapters to leading specialists in the particular subject areas, The Cambridge History is able to go into greater depth and offer a greater variety of perspectives on a more limited region.

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