Nationalism and Literature: The Politics of Culture in Canada and the United States in Bloomington, MN

This analysis of two hundred American and Canadian novels offers a new theory of national literatures, demonstrating that national canon formation occurs in tandem with nation-building. It accounts for cross-national differences and illuminates the historically constructed and symbolic nature of the relationship between literature and the nation-state. High-culture national literatures are selected as different from other novels; popular-culture bestsellers are mass market commodities for the largest, least differentiated audience.