Heartland of the Imagination

Conservative strands in American literature are often overlooked on America's largely liberal university campuses. This book focuses on the works of conservative American writers and of others who have written of America from a conservative perspective. Beginning with the work of Edgar Allan Poe, the book explores the traditionalist temper in books by Vachel Lindsay, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Alfred Hitchcock, V.S. Naipaul, and Kent Haruf. Drawing on the theories of Lewis P. Simpson, Leszek Kolakowski, Roger Scruton, and Gertrude Himmelfarb, among others, this text offers a fresh examination of a neglected but significant aspect of American culture.