Synopses & Reviews
A white knight meets his half-black half-brother in battle. A black hero marries a white woman. A slave mother kills her child by a rapist-master. A white-looking person of partly African ancestry passes for white. A master and a slave change places for a single night. An interracial marriage turns sour. The birth of a child brings a crisis. Such are some of the story lines to be found within the pages of
An Anthology of Interracial Literature.
This is the first anthology to explore the literary theme of black-white encounters, of love and family stories that crossor are crossed bywhat came to be considered racial boundaries. The anthology extends from Cleobolus' ancient Greek riddle to tormented encounters in the modern United States, visiting along the way a German medieval chivalric romance, excerpts from Arabian Nights and Italian Renaissance novellas, scenes and plays from Spain, Denmark, England, and the United States, as well as essays, autobiographical sketches, and numerous poems. The authors of the selections include some of the great names of world literature interspersed with lesser-known writers. Themes of interracial love and family relations, passing, and the figure of the Mulatto are threaded through the volume.
An Anthology of Interracial Literature allows scholars, students, and general readers to grapple with the extraordinary diversity in world literature. As multi-racial identification becomes more widespread the ethnic and cultural roots of world literature takes on new meaning.
Contributors include: Hans Christian Andersen, Gwendolyn Brooks, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Charles W. Chesnutt, Lydia Maria Child, Kate Chopin, Countee Cullen, Caroline Bond Day, Rita Dove, Alexandre Dumas, Olaudah Equiano, Langston Hughes, Victor Hugo, Charles Johnson, Adrienne Kennedy, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Guy de Maupassant, Claude McKay, Eugene O'Neill, Alexander Pushkin, and Jean Toomer.
Review
"No one has done more important work to place interracial association at the center of American culture than Werner Sollors. This extraordinarily rich anthology is an excellent addition to the study of this fascinating subject." - Randall Kennedy, author of Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity and Adoption
Review
"The first in English devoted to work that Mr. Sollors says has typically been overlooked, an orphan literature belonging to no clear ethnic or national tradition." - New York Times
Review
"Many startling textual artifacts included." - The New York Times
Review
"Thanks again to Werner Sollors for oxygenating our thoughts on race and identity, and their relationship to that holy dunce, the literary imagination. Intelligently multicultural, this compendium provokes and entertains even as it exposes still-live nerves. Sollors' scholarship is erudite but relevant; his choices speak with tactful passion about matters which touch us all."
"Many startling textual artifacts included."
"The first in English devoted to work that Mr. Sollors says has typically been overlooked, an orphan literature belonging to no clear ethnic or national tradition."
"The scope of this collection is impressive. The introduction is invaluable, providing much-needed context. The volume's topic and scope make it a valuable resource."
"No one has done more important work to place interracial association at the center of American culture than Werner Sollors. This extraordinarily rich anthology is an excellent addition to the study of this fascinating subject."
Review
“Anyone serious about their Irish-American history will have to get The Harp and the Eagle”
-Irish Echo,
Review
“Professor Susannah Ural Bruce's remarkable - and highly readable - study explores the complex political and historical motives that sent 150,000 Irish Catholic soldiers into the ranks of the Union Army during the Civil War. For the majority of Irish soldiers the cause of the union was inextricably linked to the cause of Irish independence and Bruce's wide ranging study paints a complex and evocative picture of the network of alliances and experiences that animated Irish participation in the war effort. Recommended.”
-Irish Voice,
Review
“The best book ever published on ethnic units in the American Civil War.”
-Journal of Southern History,
Review
“With remarkable sensitivity and acuity Bruce goes digging among the personal and public accounts of the Irish soldiers in the Union army and presents these soldiers, and their families and communities, on their own terms so that they emerge as real people conflicted and changed by the demands of war and the obligations of 'community.' The result is a book of immediate interest.”
-Randall M. Miller,author of Union Soldiers and the Northern Home Front: Wartime Experiences, Postwar Adjustments
Review
“Bruces research is deep and thorough, and it is presented effectively. She has made a major contribution to understanding the sentiments of Irish America at a critical time.”
---Journal of American Ethnic History,
Synopsis
On the eve of the Civil War, the Irish were one of America's largest ethnic groups, and approximately 150,000 fought for the Union. Analyzing letters and diaries written by soldiers and civilians; military, church, and diplomatic records; and community newspapers, Susannah Ural Bruce significantly expands the story of Irish-American Catholics in the Civil War, and reveals a complex picture of those who fought for the Union.
While the population was diverse, many Irish Americans had dual loyalties to the U.S. and Ireland, which influenced their decisions to volunteer, fight, or end their military service. When the Union cause supported their interests in Ireland and America, large numbers of Irish Americans enlisted. However, as the war progressed, the Emancipation Proclamation, federal draft, and sharp rise in casualties caused Irish Americans to question—and sometimes abandon—the war effort because they viewed such changes as detrimental to their families and futures in America and Ireland.
By recognizing these competing and often fluid loyalties, The Harp and the Eagle sheds new light on the relationship between Irish-American volunteers and the Union Army, and how the Irish made sense of both the Civil War and their loyalty to the United States.
About the Author
Werner Sollors is Henry B. and Anne M. Cabot Professor of English Literature and Professor of Afro-American Studies and Chair of the History of American Civilization Program at Harvard University. He is the author and editor of numerous books, including The Multilingual Anthology of American Literature, Theories of Ethnicity: A Classical Reader, and Multilingual America: Transnationalism, Ethnicity, and the Languages of American Literature, all available from NYU Press.