{"product_id":"danger-and-vulnerability-in-nineteenthcentury-american-literature-9781498563437","title":"Danger and Vulnerability in Nineteenthcentury","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNineteenth-Century Americans saw danger lurking everywhere: in railway cars and trolleys, fireplaces and floods, and amid social and political movements, from the abolition of slavery to suffrage. After the Civil War, Americans were shaken by financial panic and a volatile post-slave economy. They were awe-struck and progressively alarmed by technological innovations that promised speed and commercial growth, but also posed unprecedented physical hazard. Most of all, Americans were uncertain, particularly in light of environmental disasters like hurricanes and wildfires, about their own city on a hill and the once indisputable and protective hand of a beneficent God. The disasters, accidents, and social and political upheavals that characterized nineteenth-century culture had enormous explanatory power, metaphoric and real. \u003cbr\u003eToday we speak of similar insecurities: financial, informational, environmental, and political, and we obsessively express our worry and fear for the future. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTravis (St. John’s Univ.) bookends this innovative study of environmental disasters and apocalyptic circumstances in American literature of the late 19th century with Fenimore Cooper’s The Crater (1847) and the San Francisco earthquake and fire (1906), along the way scrutinizing little-known works by canonical authors and neglected others. Readers may find surprises here: E. D. E. N. Southworth, Mark Twain, Jack London, Kate Chopin, Theodore Dreiser, W. E. B. Du Bois—all wrote “crash\" narratives about fires, human monstrosities, celestial events, earthquakes, and so on. Travis does not portray trauma for its own sake; she details how writers created scenes of fearful dangers brought about by nature. In her fifth and final chapter, “The Tremblor,” she restores appreciation for Mary Hunter Austin’s essay about the San Francisco earthquake and H. T. Lamey’s insurance theme in his novel Side Lights (1906). Travis contributes to the trend in spiritualist and machine-inspired culture history examined by scholars such as Bridget Bennett (Transatlantic Spiritualism and Nineteenth Century American Literature, CH, Jan'08, 45-2458) and Katherine Biers (Virtual Modernism, CH, Jun'14, 51-5441), looking at how catastrophe, technology, and social justice intersect. Buttressed by relevant scholarship and prodigious references, Travis's argument will make a significant and lasting imprint on American cultural studies.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSumming Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above; general readers. * CHOICE *\u003cbr\u003eJennifer Travis’s deeply-researched study examines how nineteenth-century Americans sought to guard against the very technology that they hoped would keep them safe. Moving from sentimental novels to medical, sociological and business texts, Travis skillfully charts Americans’ ongoing fear of vulnerability, and the lengths to which they would go to avoid it. This book has much to offer nineteenth-century scholars, but It also offers rich insight into our current struggle to negotiate technology’s risks and rewards. -- Anna Mae Duane, University of Connecticut\u003cbr\u003eJennifer Travis has written an important, groundbreaking book that will generate much discussion. Her command of scholarship beyond literary studies is extraordinary. -- Paul Sorrentino, Virginia Tech\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIntroduction -Crash and Burn\u003cbr\u003eChapter One -A “damsel-errant in quest of adventures”: E.D.E.N. Southworth, Sensation, and the Law \u003cbr\u003eChapter Two -Crash Lit: Trains, Pains, and Automobiles\u003cbr\u003eChapter Three -“Hurts That Will Not Heal”: Theodore Dreiser, Masculinity, and Railroad Labor\u003cbr\u003eChapter Four -Burning Down the House: Comets, Hurricanes, and the Fire to Come\u003cbr\u003eChapter Five -The Tremblor: Disaster and Vulnerability, San Francisco, 1906","brand":"Lexington Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51040788218199,"sku":"9781498563437","price":31.5,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781498563437.jpg?v=1750947844","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/danger-and-vulnerability-in-nineteenthcentury-american-literature-9781498563437","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}