Description:
Reassesses American elitisms of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century
Arguing that Henry Adams, Henry James and Edith Wharton articulated their political thought in response to the liberalism that reigned in Boston and, more specifically, at Harvard University, this book shows how each of these authors interrogated that liberalism's arguments for education, democracy and the political duties of the cultivated elite. Coit shows that the works of these authors contributed to a realist critique of a liberal New England idealism that fed into the narrative about 'the genteel tradition', which shaped the study of US literature during the twentieth century.
Brief description: Emily Coit is Assistant Instructional Professor in English at the University of Chicago. She studies the history of thinking about education, citizenship, and democracy. Her work has appeared ELH, The Henry James Review, Nineteenth-Century Literature, and several edited collections. She is currently co-editing A Landscape Painter and Other Tales, a volume of short stories for the Cambridge Edition of the Complete Fiction of Henry James.
Review Quotes: Erudite, eloquent, and occasionally witty, Coit's reading of these figures against a broad intellectual history of liberalism and its manifestations in and around Harvard University is gripping if also disturbing.--Stephanie Palmer, Nottingham Trent University "ALH"