Includes bibliographical references (p. 217-230) and index
1. Big : Expansion and its discontents -- The city -- Representing nature -- Apocalypse -- The sense of place -- 2. Rich : Weber and Veblen: Reasons to work and reasons to spend -- USA -- Work and identity -- Labor reform -- Consumption and identity -- 3. New : Beginning anew: Crevecoeur and Hawthorne -- Young America -- Making it new I: literary modernism -- Making it new II: the other arts -- 4. Free : The multiple meanings of freedom -- War and the affirmation of American values -- Writing war -- Upstream against the mainstream -- "An inescapable network of mutuality"
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American literature-- 20th century-- History and criticism
Literature and society-- United States-- History-- 20th century