The Gold Standard and the Logic of Naturalism: American Literature at the Turn of the Century (The New Historicism: Studies in Cultural Poetics) - Hardcover

Michæls, Walter Benn

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0520059816 ISBN 13: 9780520059818

Publisher: University of California Press, 1987

Synopsis

The Gold Standard and the Logic of Naturalism discusses ways of creating value in turn-of-the-century American capitalism. Focusing on such topics as the alienation of property, the invention of masochism, and the battle over free silver, it examines the participation of cultural forms in these phenomena. It imagines a literary history that must at the same time be social, economic, and legal; and it imagines a literature that, to be understood at all, must be understood both as a producer and a product of market capitalism.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

"Michaels has written a book that will be essential reading for all those interested in American fiction and American culture. . . . This is a daring, brash work of the best kind—it will be much discussed."—Philip Fisher, Brandeis University

"Like Michel Foucault, Michaels locates the 'political' in the relations between individuals, in consciousness, and in language. His work represents a far more subtle, internalized, and unschematic conception of the convergence of literature and power than we have had in American studies. He is one of the most gifted practitioners of cultural criticism today."—Leo Marx, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

From the Back Cover:

"Michaels has written a book that will be essential reading for all those interested in American fiction and American culture. . . . This is a daring, brash work of the best kind (it will be much discussed." (Philip Fisher, Brandeis University)

About this edition

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0520059816
• ISBN 13: 9780520059818
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 257