American Jeremiad

Sacvan Bercovitch is the Powell M. Cabot Research Professor of American Literature at Harvard University. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he is a former president of the American Studies Association and the general editor of the eight-volume Cambridge History of American Literature.

This is a dazzling performance. It supplies conceptual links between phenomena where historians have often sensed a connection without being able to describe it adequately. . . [Bercovitch] has written intellectual history at the highest level."—Edmund S. Morgan, New York Review of Books"American Jeremiad is truly a seminal book . . . the most illuminating study of the root paradigm of American culture yet written."—Victor Turner, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Virginia"One of the most exciting interpretations of American culture in recent decades."—Gustaaf Van Cromphout, American Literature"Simply the most profound and persuasive work since the great books of the late Perry Miller."—William A. Clehsch, Church History". . . an original and moving study that is of significance not only to the literary historian but to anyone concerned with the future of American culture. . . The American Jeremiad is a splendid book."—Jesper Rosenmeier, Early American Literature