The Fictional Republic

"A wonderful book, written with flair and imagination. The Fictional Republic tells the story of Horatio Alger, the gilded age, and the contest to define America. In explaining why the Horatio Alger myth persists, Carol Nackenoff offers a powerful new reading of American political culture--as it was at the start of the century, as it is today."--James A. Morone, Brown University and author of The Democratic Wish "Firmly grounded on the bedrock of biographical detail, The Fictional Republic perceptively analyzes the politics of Alger's novels. To my great delight, Carol Nackenoff goes far in retrieving a historical Alger whose writings have been appropriated in this century by success cultists and political consultants of every stripe."--Gary Scharnhorst, University of New Mexico "Nackenoff's innovative exploration of the connections between politics and popular literature identifies the many ways in which Horatio Alger reflected and reinforced the political culture of his time."--Paul E. Peterson, Harvard University "This is a splendid book in every way: it is well-conceived, superbly executed, and very well written. Nackenoff tells a marvelously insightful, subtle, and compelling story that is simultaneously an account of Alger and the nineteenth-century religious, philosophic, and political sources and meanings of his writings and an interpretation of the development of American political discourse. Students of popular culture could learn much from The Fictional Republic."--Gordon Schochet, Rutgers University "A valuable contribution to American studies and American literary history. Especially helpful are the chapters on the development of readers and reading in America."--CHOICE "Her book will engage scholars who are interested in how the nineteenth-century market destabilized value and identity."--The Journal of American History "Nackenoff's The Fictional Republic is another step toward recovering who Alger was and what we as Americans have meant in evoking his name."--American Literature