Beyond Ethnicity: Consent and Descent in American Culture

This highly original study examines the role of "ethnicity" in American literature and what that literature has said--and continues to say--about our remarkably diverse culture. Sollors focuses particularly on the conflict between "descent" and "consent"--between the concern for one's racial, ethnic, and familial heritage and the conflicting desire to choose one's own destiny regardless of that heritage. "Grave and hilarious, tender and merciless...The book performs a public service."--Quen...