Defoe's America (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780521195812)

The Americas appear as an evocative setting in more than half of Daniel Defoe's novels, and often offer a new beginning for his characters. In the first full-length study of Defoe and colonialism, Dennis Todd explores why the New World loomed so large in Defoe's imagination. By focusing on the historical contexts that informed Defoe's depiction of American Indians, African slaves, and white indentured servants, Dennis Todd investigates the colonial assumptions that shaped his novels and, at the same time, uncovers how Defoe used details of the American experience in complex, often figurative ways to explore the psychological bases of the profound conversions and transformations that his heroes and heroines undergo. And by examining what Defoe knew and did not know about America, what he falsely believed and what he knowingly falsified, Defoe's America probes the doubts, hesitancies, and contradictions he had about the colonial project he so fervently promoted.

Author: Dennis Todd
ISBN-10: 0521195810
ISBN-13: 9780521195812
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 08/23/2010
Pages: 240
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.14lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.70d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 04/01/2011