Fictions of Capital by Richard Godden

Fictions of Capital by Richard Godden

Fictions of Capital situates manners and writing about manners in the context of American capitalism between 1880 and 1960, a period that runs from the onset of the sales culture to its war-prompted crisis point in the 1960s. The work of various economic theorists and historians is used to establish two of capitalism's deeper narratives: the plot to accumulate and expand resources (1880 to the First World War), and the plot to ensure reproduction of the expanded resources (preoccupying late capitalism, but already an issue for market leaders in the 1920s). James and Fitzgerald are read as the key novelists of bourgeois affluence, their juxtaposition covers the scope of Incorporation, from the initial accumulation to the problems of how accumulations are to be reproduced. The relation between Fitzgerald and Mailer is explored as a way into new tensions in the growth imperative, resolved though the linking of Destruction, or the permanent arms economy, to Desire, or the ubiquitous shop-window, as a capitalist incentive.

RICHARD GRAY is a Professor of Literature at the University of Essex and the first American literature specialist to be elected to the British Academy. He is the author or editor of over fifteen publications and is currently co-organizing Transatlantic Exchanges: The South in Europe-Europe in the American South, a major international collaborative research project.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780521064033
ISBN 10	0521064031
Title	Fictions of Capital
Author	Richard Godden
Series	Cambridge Studies In American Literature And Culture
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Cambridge University Press
Year published	2008-06-05
Number of pages	304
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.