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The Air-Line to Seattle

In this controversial, wide-ranging, and fearlessly candid book, Kenneth S. Lynn argues that too many of our current commentators on the American past are out of touch with historical reality. His targets range from the currently fashionable but fantastic idea that the Declaration of Independence derives from a communitarian rather than individualistic philosophy to misinterpretations of the lives of Emerson, Walter Lippmann, Hemingway, and Max Perkins. In each case Lynn reveals the tendency of literary and intellectual historians to impose precooked formulas upon the evidence they profess to study.

238 pages | 5.37 x 8.50 | © 1984

History: American History

Literature and Literary Criticism: American and Canadian Literature

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
1. Prologue: The Air-Line to Seattle
2. Falsifying Jefferson
3. Emerson the Man
4. Speaking for Whitman
5. Welcome Back from the Raft, Huck Honey!
6. The Masterpiece That Became a Hoax
7. The Rebels of Greenwich Village
8. The Strange Unhappy Life of Max Perkins
9. Hemingway’s Private War
10. More Facts!
11. Only Yesterday
12. The First Lady’s Lady Friend
13. Malcolm Cowley Forgets
14. Versions of Walter Lippmann
15. The Regressive Historians
16. Self and Society
Index

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