" The Wings of Atalanta is a much-needed study that underscores the significance of how a 'particular form of white supremacy' took shape in America. In this rigorously researched and beautifully written book, Mark Richardson interrogates the works of Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois, Stephen Crane, Charles Chesnutt, Richard Wright, and Jack Kerouac to demonstrate how these authors used or resisted white supremacy, indirectly or overtly, in their work. Asking today's reader to take a look back at what Whitman called our 'traveled roads,' Richardson seeks to better understand how we arrived where we are today and possibly expose a pathway to change our future. In the process he has created a deeply rewarding study for all who choose to enter." --Shawn Leigh Alexander, Professor of African and African American Studies and Director of the Langston Hughes Center, University of Kansas "This splendid collection of essays by Mark Richardson examines the literary, historical, and political implications of seeing America as an imaginary place inhabited by real people.

Forging his argument out of lucid and, at times, provocative readings of Douglass, Du Bois, Wright, Kerouac, and others, Richardson prodigiously sweeps backward and forward across American history as he calls for the emergence of a new America to supersede the old imaginary place, a new national space redeemed by living up to the fullest of its democratic possibilities. His message is as timely as it is essential." --Rebecka Rutledge Fisher, Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ications of seeing America as an imaginary place inhabited by real people. Forging his argument out of lucid and, at times, provocative readings of Douglass, Du Bois, Wright, Kerouac, and others, Richardson prodigiously sweeps backward and forward across American history as he calls for the emergence of a new America to supersede the old imaginary place, a new national space redeemed by living up to the fullest of its democratic possibilities. His message is as timely as it is essential." --Rebecka Rutledge Fisher, Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ications of seeing America as an imaginary place inhabited by real people. Forging his argument out of lucid and, at times, provocative readings of Douglass, Du Bois, Wright, Kerouac, and others, Richardson prodigiously sweeps backward and forward across American history as he calls for the emergence of a new America to supersede the old imaginary place, a new national space redeemed by living up to the fullest of its democratic possibilities. His message is as timely as it is essential.

" --Rebecka Rutledge Fisher, Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ications of seeing America as an imaginary place inhabited by real people. Forging his argument out of lucid and, at times, provocative readings of Douglass, Du Bois, Wright, Kerouac, and others, Richardson prodigiously sweeps backward and forward across American history as he calls for the emergence of a new America to supersede the old imaginary place, a new national space redeemed by living up to the fullest of its democratic possibilities. His message is as timely as it is essential." --Rebecka Rutledge Fisher, Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill by living up to the fullest of its democratic possibilities. His message is as timely as it is essential." --Rebecka Rutledge Fisher, Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.