Description: "This is one of the best books of the last decade. . . remarkably original and important. Robbins's deep concern for literary and cultural theory supports and focuses his close attention to reading specific works as they arise from and function within a history lived and made by human beings. I don't know a better example of the connections between literary and cultural studies."--Jonathan Arac, University of Pittsburgh
Review Quotes: "The relations [Robbins] perceives between servants and those they serve are dense with complexity and sophistication. . . . [This] magisterially learned and wide-ranging book looks backwards over social structures, tensions, and cooperations that have defined our shared past for centuries."
--Dinah Birch, "London Review of Books
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