Includes bibliographical references (pages 92-96) and index.
Biographical sketch -- The story behind the story -- List of characters -- Summary and analysis -- Critical views. Peter F. Neumeyer on E.L. Doctorow, Kleist, and the ascendancy of things ; Barbara Foley on the forms of historical consciousness in modern fiction ; Frederick R. Karl on Ragtime's variations ; Geoffrey Galt Harpham on E.L. Doctorow and the moral fiction of history ; Marshall Bruce Gentry on Ragtime as auto biography ; Cushing Strout on Twain, Doctorow, and the anachronistic adventures of the arms mechanic and the jazz pianist ; John G. Parks on historical compositions ; Fredric Jameson on the cultural logic of late capitalism ; Christopher D. Morris on illusions of demystification ; Berndt Ostendorf on the musical world.
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An account of the interrelated lives of the families of a New Rochelle manufacturer, an immigrant socialist, and a Harlem musician and their involvements with period notables is set against the backdrop of early twentieth-century American history.