The Culture Concept: Writing and Difference in the Age of Realism

Rating:
Summary: Great cultural studies!
Review: This is a great book about the history of the culture concept -- and especially about all the different kinds of literature related to it.

Rating:
Summary: Deft and nuanced
Review: What makes this book so good is that it is equal parts intellectual history and literary criticism. Elliott has a provocative way of thinking about "culture," and he shows how foundational the culture concept has been to American literature. He also has a lot to say about the history of African American and Native American writing, and it is much more interesting than talking about those works as being completely separate form each other.