Читать книгу American Quaker Romances. Building the Myth of the White Christian Nation онлайн

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With that in mind, this book will analyze how historical romances with Quaker protagonists contribute to a particular version of U.S. history and national identity, one which many readers find very appealing and, to some extent, therapeutic. The therapeutic power would come from the fact that the romances under analysis place special importance on several issues—four, in particular, as will be seen—that have a determining impact on the formation of a people’s national identity. As Ina Bergmann has explained, inherent to historical fiction is “the urge to create a national consciousness and a cultural identity” (2021: 15); for that urge to be satisfied, authors need to combine history with “[a] categorical triad of race, gender, and religion,” the three of which are “the foundational pillars” of historical novels (2021: 12). The need to forge a national consciousness and a cultural identity seems to have become even more acute in the twenty-first century, “[e]specially since the millennial hysteria gained momentum and the traumatic events of 9/11 unsettled […] the United States” (Bergmann 2021: 194). So, considering those circumstances, this book will analyze how Quaker romances—a majority of which, as said, have been published in the twenty-first century—deploy four elements, i.e., history, gender, religion, and race, and how these four elements contribute to the formation of a particular national identity.