Contesting the Past, Reconstructing the Nation by Benjamin A.... - 9780817357924

Contesting the Past, Reconstructing the NationAmerican Literature and Culture in the Gilded Age, 18761893\nAuthor(s): Benjamin A. Railton\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: The University of Alabama Press, United States\nImprint: The University of Alabama Press\nISBN-13: 9780817357924, 978-0817357924\nSynopsis\nIn this study of Gilded Age literature and culture, Benjamin Railton proposes that in the years after Reconstruction, Americas identity was often contested through distinct and competing conceptions of the nations history. He argues that the United States moved toward unifying and univocal historical narratives in the years between the Centennial and Columbian Expositions, that ongoing social conflict provided sites for complications of those narratives, and that works of historical literature offer some of the most revealing glimpses into the nature of those competing visions.\n\nGilded Age scholarship often connects the period to the 20thcentury American future, but Railton argu.