Washed White
Michael Rogin, 10 June 1993
The Rites of Assent: Transformations in the Symbolic Construction of America
by Sacvan Bercovitch.
Routledge, 424 pp., £40, November 1992,9780415900140 Show More
by Sacvan Bercovitch.
Routledge, 424 pp., £40, November 1992,
Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America
by Garry Wills.
Simon and Schuster, 315 pp., £17.99, April 1993,0 671 76956 1 Show More
by Garry Wills.
Simon and Schuster, 315 pp., £17.99, April 1993,
“... and economic decline, of ethnic cleansing, mass rape, communal violence and racial polarisation, Garry Wills and Sacvan Bercovitch proclaim the power of language to transform the world. Against one current fashion, both reject punning and the play of the socially detached signifier: they embed American words in American history. Against another current ... ”