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Rating: 
Summary: great ideas, mixed execution
Review: Sundquist's book is a major contribution to the study of American Literature and culture in the broadest sense. His readings are not literary enough for my taste, but his contribution is undeniable. Unfortunately, his sense of history and the quality of his research leaves much to be desired when it falls outside of his specialization (19th century Anglo-American lit). The most interesting chapter (Chapter 2 on New World Slavery) suffers from grievous errors, both historical and methodological. Sundquist relies too readily on superannuated sources, perhaps because his knowledge of the Spanish New World is underdeveloped. This is reflected both by factual errors that had by then been corrected repeatedly by Latinamericanists (e.g., the role of the Dominicans and las Casas in particular), but also by his lack of specificity in the ways that the institution of slavery changed from the late 15th to the 19th century. The liberty taken with Spanish American culture, history and texts is an unfortunate trend among English professors (see Greenblatt for another example), but one that seems to be accepted in the literary critical world. Overall, Sundquist's book is an important contribution, but one that requires serious correction by other scholars.
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