Designed for the general reader, this six-volume set presents literature as a historical and cultural field viewed from a wide array of contemporary perspectives. The set, which is "new historicist" in its approach, endorses the notion that not only does history affect literature, but literature itself informs history. The set features approximately 500 survey entries. Subjects include: political topics (Manifest Destiny, Reform, Underground Railroad, Women's Suffrage); ideas in context (Darwinism, Scientific Materialism, Transcendentalism); values (Assimilation, Sentimentalism, Success, Mourning); genres (Dime Novels, Oratory, Science Fiction); popular entertainment (Sports, Theater); publishing (Harper's Monthly, Scribner's Magazine); works of literature and nonfiction ("Billy Budd," "Hiawatha," "Life in the Iron Mills"); and much more. The analysis of a wide range of classics in American literature, viewed as cultural and historical documents, cultivates critical skills in reading texts from various perspectives, including aesthetic, biographical, social, historical, racial and gendered.