| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.4

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 196 words from this article are provided below; about 349 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The Anarchy of Empire in the Making of U.S. Culture. By Amy Kaplan. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002. 260 pp. $35.00, ISBN 0-674-00913-4.)

The work of a literary scholar, The Anarchy of Empire in the Making of U.S. Culture offers to historical readers an outstanding example of the benefits and the limitations of textual analysis. When Amy Kaplan writes about texts that do not usually appear in the canon of American literature, she presents an interesting interdisciplinary analysis that addresses issues that historians might raise along with those that would concern her English department colleagues. When she turns to investigate works by Mark Twain, however, she does not see the need to place his commentaries on imperialism or race within a historical context. In such instances Kaplan apparently believes that texts of unquestioned literary merit do not require the sort of contextualization or justification that historians might deem necessary. As a result, Kaplan's exploration of American writings about empire presents an uneven mixture of astute historical analysis, American studies syntheses, and literary assumptions about the centrality of the text and the author that do not always meet the expectations of historical readers.

. . .

There are about 349 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.