1 The First Americans:American Literature During the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods Imagining Eden Writing of the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods 2 Inventing Americas:The Making of American Literature 1800-1865 Making a Nation The Making of American Myths The Making of American Selves The Making of Many Americas The Making of an American Fiction and Poetry 3 Reconstructing the Past, Reimagining the Future:The Development of American Literature 1865-1900 Rebuilding a Nation The Development of Literary Regionalisms The Development of Literary Realism and Naturalism The Development of Women's Writing The Development of Many Americas 4 Making It New:The Emergence of Modern American Literature 1900-1945 Changing National Identities Between Victorianism and Modernism The Inventions of Modernism Traditionalism, Politics, and Prophecy Community and Identity Mass Culture and the Writer 5 Negotiating the American Century:American Literature Since 1945 Towards a Transnational Nation Formalists and Confessionals Public and Private Histories Beats, Prophets, and Aesthetes The Art and Politics of Race Realism and Its Discontents Language and Genre Creating New Americas Index