Toward an Inter-Americanist Literary Paradigm

Antonio Barrenechea, University of Mary Washington

Dr. Barrenchea's article begins on page 46.

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Abstract

In his 1932 presidential address to the American Historical Association, Herbert Eugene Bolton, a historian from Berkeley, called for a new historiography of America that has stirred controversy ever since. Delivered in Toronto, his address surpassed exceptionalist history by placing the United States within a broader hemispheric context. Bolton derived his title, “The Epic of Greater America,” in response to The Epic of America, a bestseller from 1931 by James Truslow Adams, which constructed a national narrative by privileging the developmental journey of European immigrants in their pursuit of what he was first in calling “The American Dream.”...In contrast, “The Epic of Greater America” outlined the wider latitudes of the New World historical experience.