The Rites of Assent Transformations in the Symbolic Construction of America [Paperback]

The Rites of Assentexamines the cultural strategies through which America served as a vehicle simultaneously for diversity and cohesion, fusion and fragmentation. Taking an ethnographic, cross-cultural approach, The Rites of Assenttraces the meanings and purposes of America back to the colonial typology of mission, and specifically (in chapters on Puritan rhetoric, Cotton Mather, Jonathan Edwards, and the movement from Revival to Revolution) to the legacy of early New England.Sacvan Bercovitchis Carswell Professor of English at Harvard University and is currently the General Editor of the multi-volume Cambridge History of American Literature. His previous books include The PuritanOrigins of the American Self, The American Jeremiad, and The Office The Scarlet Letter.