The Cultural Roots of American Islamicism (Hardcover)

Timothy Marr

ISBN 10: 0521852935 / ISBN 13: 9780521852937

Published by Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006

About this Item

Hardcover. In this cultural history of Americans' engagement with Islam in the colonial and antebellum period, Timothy Marr analyzes the historical roots of how the Muslim world figured in American prophecy, politics, reform, fiction, art and dress. Marr argues that perceptions of the Muslim world, long viewed not only as both an anti-Christian and despotic threat but also as an exotic other, held a larger place in domestic American concerns than previously thought. Historical, literary, and imagined encounters with Muslim history and practices provided a backdrop where different Americans oriented the direction of their national project, the morality of the social institutions, and the contours of their romantic imaginations. This history sits as an important background to help understand present conflicts between the Muslim world and the United States. In this cultural history of Americans' engagement with Islam in the colonial and antebellum period, Timothy Marr analyzes the historical roots of how the Muslim world figured in American life. This history sits as an important background to help understand present conflicts between the Muslim world and the USA. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780521852937

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Cultural Roots of American Islamicism (Hardcover)
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
• Publication Date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521852935
• ISBN 13: 9780521852937
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

In this cultural history of Americans' engagement with Islam in the colonial and antebellum period, Timothy Marr analyzes the historical roots of how the Muslim world figured in American prophecy, politics, reform, fiction, art and dress. Marr argues that perceptions of the Muslim world, long viewed not only as both an anti-Christian and despotic threat but also as an exotic other, held a larger place in domestic American concerns than previously thought. Historical, literary, and imagined encounters with Muslim history and practices provided a backdrop where different Americans oriented the direction of their national project, the morality of the social institutions, and the contours of their romantic imaginations. This history sits as an important background to help understand present conflicts between the Muslim world and the United States.

About the Author

Timothy Marr is Assistant Professor in the Curriculum in American Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill where he teaches seminars on such topics as cultural memory, captivity, tobacco, birth and death, and mating and marriage. He became interested in the subject of this book while teaching Herman Melville's Moby-Dick at Lahore American School in Pakistan in the late 1980s. He is the co-editor of Ungraspable Phantom: Essays on Moby-Dick.