“This is an astute and wide-ranging inquiry into how the cultural politics of the New Deal remained influential in American writing after 1945. By interrogating conventional categories of periodization, Strand makes an important contribution to the field of American literature and to American studies more generally.”—Paul Giles, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne
“In command of each writer’s oeuvre, Strand concentrates on a host of texts that participate in the discourse of travel and that reveal these writers’—and often their fictional characters’—vexed dramas of navigating roles as privileged explorers and/or guides, of encountering dubious political regimes in foreign lands, and of situating themselves in relation to the legacy of the New Deal activist state. It’s a fascinating history, and Strand tells it with extraordinary vigor.”—Mary Esteve, author, The Aesthetics and Politics of the Crowd in American Literature