Description:
Explores humor and satire as a comic contact zone between the United States and the Pacific world from 1840 to 1890. Considers how nineteenth-century Americans and Pacific Islanders used humor to employ stereotypes or to question them.
Brief description: Todd Nathan Thompson is Professor of English at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of The National Joker: Abraham Lincoln and the Politics of Satire and Contributing Editor to Studies in American Humor.
Review Quotes:
"A seminal work of meticulous, detailed, and documented scholarship, A Laughable Empire: The US Imagines the Pacific World, 1840-1890 is a unique, original, exceptionally well-organized, and impressively informative contribution to personal, professional, community, and academic library 19th Century American History & Culture collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists."
--Midwest Book Review