(Paperback)

Hilton Obenzinger explores two "infidel texts" in this tradition: Herman Melville's Clarel: A Poem and Pilgramage to the Holy Land (1876) and Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad: or, The New Pilgrims' Progress (1869). He shows that these works undermined conventional assumptions about America's divine mission.

(Paperback)

Drawing from sources as varied as Mark Twain, the Patty Hearst story, Melville's "Ishmael", detective fiction, Hollywood and the porn industry, his own experiences as a father and a teacher on Yuork Indian reservations, the author tells the Biblical story of Abraham & Isaac through the distorted lens of popular culture.