Sink or Swim

Capitalist Selfhood and Nineteenth-Century American Literature
People living in the nineteenth-century United States saw shocking upheavals in both the economy and in ideas of selfhood in a commercial society. Narratives such as Horatio Alger's rags-to-riches tales allured Americans with visions of financial success, while events such as the Panics of 8 9, 837, 857, and 8 5 threatened them with sudden and devastating financial failure. The antebellum period's "go-ahead" ethos encouraged individuals to form an identity amid this chaos by striving for financial success through risk-taking—that is, to form a capitalist self. Andrew Kopec argues that writers of this era were not immune to this business turbulence rather, their responses to it shaped the development of American literature. By examining the public and private writings of well-known American writers—including Washington Irving, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Frederick Douglass—Kopec contends that, instead of anxiously retreating from the volatile market, these figures deliberately engaged with it in their writing.
These writers grappled with both the limits and opportunities of capitalist selfhood and tried, in various ways, to harness the economy's energies for the benefit of the self. In making this argument, Kopec invites readers to consider how this era of American literature questioned the ideologies of capitalist identity that seem inescapable today.

UK Delivery:

• Free delivery on all orders of £10 or more.
• £1.49 delivery fee on orders below £10.
• UK orders are shipped via Royal Mail 2nd Class.

International Delivery:

• Flat rate delivery charges vary by country.

Dispatch and Delivery Times:

• All orders are shipped from our warehouse in Northampton, UK within 48 hours of receipt during working hours.
• UK mainland orders typically arrive within 3-5 working days via Royal Mail 2nd Class.
• International estimated delivery times:
• Europe & Channel Islands: 7 to 10 working days
• USA: 7 to 15 working days
• Rest of the World: 9 to 21 working days

View our full delivery infomation here.