Description: Constructing American Lives: Biography and Culture in Nineteenth-Century America
Brief description: Scott E. Casper is associate professor of history at the University of Nevada, Reno.
Review Quotes:
"Casper's excellent Consturcting American Lives defines a new way of conceiving and writing literary history . . . . The analytic authority of Casper's book derives from the imaginativeness - and rigor - with which he executes his design. A body of striking archival material permits him to . . . offer a fascinating set of exemplary cases . . . . By exploring so lucidly the ideological questions posed by the new discipline of cultural studies and by performing so richly the traditional archival work of the historian, Casper achieves his ambitious goal." -- Journal of Interdisciplinary History