Antebellum at Sea: Maritime Fantasies in Nineteenth-Century America

(Paperback)

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In the antebellum years, the Western world's symbolic realities were expanded and challenged as merchant, military, and scientific activity moved into Pacific and Arctic waters. Jason Berger explores the roles that early nineteenth-century maritime narratives played in conceptualizing the developing global market system and what these chronicles disclose about an era marked by immense change.

Reviews

"In "Antebellum at Sea", Jason Berger advances a highly persuasive, psycho-analytically informed account of the cultural work sea narratives played in negotiating the contradictions between antebellum market society and the maritime trade's immersion in a global capitalist order. Through a series of superb readings, Berger shows how sea fantasies operated at the level of everyday lived experience even as they reshaped ideological coordinates. "Antebellum at Sea" should interest anyone concerned with the impact of globalization on 19th century cultural politics." --Donald E. Pease

Author Bio

Jason Berger is assistant professor of English at the University of South Dakota.