Imagined Empires: Incas, Aztecs, and the New World of American Literature, 1771–1876

by Eric Wertheimer

• ISBN13: 9780521110075
• ISBN10: 0521110076
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-04-30
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Imagined Empires demonstrates that early American culture took great interest in South American civilizations, especially the Incas and Aztecs, and in so doing made a statement about the role of the United States as an empire in the emerging political order of New World colonies and states. By examining the work of Philip Freneau, Joel Barlow, William Prescott, Herman Melville, and Walt Whitman, the long-contested concept of "indigenous origins" is given expanded meaning beyond traditional critiques of American culture.

Table of Contents

Introduction: ancient America in the postcolonial national imaginary

Commencements: pre-Columbian worlds and Philip Freneau's literature of American empire

Diplomacy: Joel Barlow's scripting and subscripting of ancient America

Noctography: Prescott's sketchings of Aztecs and Incas

Mutations: Melville, representation, and South American history

Passage: two rivulets and the obscurity of American maps

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