The Cambridge History of American Theatre, Vol. I

It is unlikely that people who read this volume (other than reviewers) will do so from cover to cover, and that is a shame because The Cambridge History of American Theatre clearly charts the campaigns won, those still waging, and those largely unattempted in scholarship covering the history of the American (US) theatre before 1870. What is striking about this history is the new and old historiography that characterizes it. The editors' introduction, for example, reads in two directions, one emphasizing adjudicatory texts, the other innovative ones. Chapters follow suit, juxtaposing commonplaces from received traditions with more self-conscious and theatricalizing analyses, leaving some prominent incompatibilities uninterrogated

American history · Ancient history · Archaeology · Art history · Cover (algebra · Historiography · Political science · Scholarship · Shame · Engineering · History · Law · Theater, Performance, and Music History · Theatre and Performance Studies