Description: Covenant and Republic investigates the cultural politics of historical memory in the early American republic, specifically the historical literature of Puritanism. By situating historical writing about Puritanism in the context of the cultural forces of Republicanism and liberalism, this study reconsiders the emergence of the historical romance in the 1820s, before the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne. This book not only aids the Americanist recovery of this literary period, but also brings together literary studies of historical fiction and historical scholarship of early Republican political culture; in doing so, it offers a persuasive new account of just what is at stake when one reads literature of and about the past.
Review Quotes: "Gould's Covenant and Republic offers insight not only into significant works that preceded the more often read and discussed historical romances of the nineteenth century but also into the contemporary social and political signficance of these works....a nicely detailed and thorough analysis of very complex issues." A. James Wohlpart, Atlantic Review