Surface and Depth

"Surface and Depth: The Quest for Legibility in American Culture is a fresh attempt to revitalize an interpretive overview. Focusing on the distinctly American zeal for knowing or making legible, it seeks to recuperate a central tradition while simultaneously recognizing how much that tradition has occluded." "Combining historical reconceptualization with readings of many of the classics of American literature, Michael Gilmore traces - from the time of the first white settlement and subsequent founding of the United States - the presence of a hitherto unappreciated inheritance. American…