American Writers and the Approach of World War II, 1935–1941
A Literary History

Ichiro Takayoshi's book argues that World War II transformed American literary culture.

Ichiro Takayoshi (Author)

9781107085268, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 April 2015

344 pages
23.5 x 16.2 x 2.3 cm, 0.63 kg

'American Writers and the Approach of World War II is a masterful literary history: it manages to be comprehensive without sacrificing depth and encyclopedic without descending into mere accumulation.' James Dawes, American Literature

Ichiro Takayoshi's book argues that World War II transformed American literary culture. From the mid-1930s to the American entry into World War II in 1941, pre-eminent figures from Ernest Hemingway to Reinhold Neibuhr responded to the turn of the public's interest from the economic depression at home to the menace of totalitarian systems abroad by producing novels, short stories, plays, poems, and cultural criticism in which they prophesied the coming of a second world war and explored how America could prepare for it. The variety of competing answers offered a rich legacy of idioms, symbols, and standard arguments that were destined to license America's promotion of its values and interests around the world for the rest of the twentieth century. Ambitious in scope and addressing an enormous range of writers, thinkers, and artists, this book is the first to establish the outlines of American culture during this pivotal period.

1. From depression to war
2. Ethiopia, lift your dark-night face
3. Americans in Spain
4. Munich on Broadway
5. The war of words
6. The people's culture
7. Across the Pacific
8. The Axis conquest of Europe and responsible liberalism I
9. The Axis conquest of Europe and responsible liberalism II.

Subject Areas: History of the Americas [HBJK], Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH]