Waves of Decolonization

“[An] insightful and thought-provoking series of essays. . . . David Luis-Brown’s primary goal is to expand conventional readings of the selected writers, interrogating their contributions to the complex processes of nationalism, decolonization, anticolonialism, neocolonialism, and notions of hemispheric citizenship. He accomplishes this by deftly weaving together literature, history, and biography. . . . Waves of Decolonization can be rewardingly read across a wide range of academic disciplines.” - Franklin W. Knight, Journal of American History

“Careful not to conflate the demands of specific social movements, Luis-Brown lucidly delineates their connections, as, for example, in his discussion of how key figures of the Harlem Renaissance engaged Mexican Revolutionary cultural politics. . . . The last two chapters on primitivism and ethnography, respectively, chart the early-twentieth-century cultural turn that rejected essentialist theories of race while retaining a charged concept of the ‘primitive.’ Luis-Brown underscores the protean ideological valence of each of these discourses; his discussion of the complex positions on race and foreign policy in the ethnographic work of Zora Neale Hurston and Manuel Gamio is a tour de force.” - Claire F. Fox, American Literature

“Waves of Decolonization is convincing in its argument for a transnational, decolonizing approach to American studies. It is accessible, grounded, and thorough. It will equally captivate researchers and students of this hemisphere and anyone interested in an alternative understanding of this hemisphere’s intertwined history and destiny. Luis-Brown’s approach is a refreshing and very necessary shift away from the national, ethnolinguistic, and racial boundaries that have most often defined American, African American, Latino, Mexican, Mexican American, Cuban, and Caribbean studies.” - Kenya C. Dworkin y Méndez, Hispanic American Historical Review

“This insightful study uses a much-needed hemispheric approach to track the listed groups’ reaction to the imperial whirlwind. Meticulously researched and documented, the book presents a literary-historical analysis covering the period from the 1880s to the 1930s. . . . In Waves of Decolonization, Luis-Brown has woven a rich tapestry of the anticolonial and anti-imperial discourse that accompanied the consolidation of U.S. hegemony. The book is a valuable contribution to scholars, students, and laypersons working in such varied fields as American, African, ethnic, Caribbean, and Latin American studies.” - Jorge Chinea, History: Reviews of New Books

“David Luis-Brown’s meticulously researched Waves of Decolonization contributes much to the nascent but growing field of transnational and hemispheric studies. . . . [T]he author posits crucial, substantive questions, employing a comparative interdisciplinary methodology with far-reaching implications. In doing so, his study advances and contributes to the continuing transformation of American Studies.” - Maria del Carmen Martinez, E.I.A.L.

“Luis-Brown must be commended for his ambitious, multidisciplinary approach. The sheer breadth of understanding he displays about so-called ‘native’, ‘primitive’, or auto-ethnographic works of literature, visual art, and political prose issuing from the Americas in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is staggering. . . . David Luis-Brown has written an innovative book which will usefully engage academics and students concerned with Afro-American, American, or comparative literature as well as Caribbean, Mexican, ‘post’ colonial, and transnational studies.”
- James Cullingham, Bulletin of Latin American Research

“From his perceptive reconsideration of the role of mestizaje in the writings of María Amparo Ruiz de Burton and Helen Hunt Jackson, to his astute analysis of the redeployments of sentimentalism and primitivism by W. E. B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, and Nicholás Guillén, David Luis-Brown’s careful research and thoughtful critiques demonstrate the necessity of thinking beyond the nation, of viewing race and empire from hemispheric and global perspectives. Waves of Decolonization is at one and the same time a radical revision of our hemisphere’s literary history and proof of the possibility of a post-nationalist and post-imperial American studies.”—George Lipsitz, author of Footsteps in the Dark: The Hidden Histories of Popular Music

“With Waves of Decolonization, David Luis-Brown practices rather than prescribes a transnational American studies, going beyond the purely thematic level to engage with other languages, cultures, and literary histories. Luis-Brown presents a vast amount of literary material and many cross-cultural connections that will be unknown or little known to scholars in U.S. American studies, while he also contributes new understandings of familiar and canonical writers.”—Anna Brickhouse, author of Transamerican Literary Relations and the Nineteenth-Century Public Sphere

“Waves of Decolonization is convincing in its argument for a transnational, decolonizing approach to American studies. It is accessible, grounded, and thorough. It will equally captivate researchers and students of this hemisphere and anyone interested in an alternative understanding of this hemisphere’s intertwined history and destiny. Luis-Brown’s approach is a refreshing and very necessary shift away from the national, ethnolinguistic, and racial boundaries that have most often defined American, African American, Latino, Mexican, Mexican American, Cuban, and Caribbean studies.”

~Kenya C. Dworkin y Méndez, Hispanic American Historical Review

“[An] insightful and thought-provoking series of essays. . . . David Luis-Brown’s primary goal is to expand conventional readings of the selected writers, interrogating their contributions to the complex processes of nationalism, decolonization, anticolonialism, neocolonialism, and notions of hemispheric citizenship. He accomplishes this by deftly weaving together literature, history, and biography. . . . Waves of Decolonization can be rewardingly read across a wide range of academic disciplines.”

~Franklin W. Knight, Journal of American History

“Careful not to conflate the demands of specific social movements, Luis-Brown lucidly delineates their connections, as, for example, in his discussion of how key figures of the Harlem Renaissance engaged Mexican Revolutionary cultural politics. . . . The last two chapters on primitivism and ethnography, respectively, chart the early-twentieth-century cultural turn that rejected essentialist theories of race while retaining a charged concept of the ‘primitive.’ Luis-Brown underscores the protean ideological valence of each of these discourses; his discussion of the complex positions on race and foreign policy in the ethnographic work of Zora Neale Hurston and Manuel Gamio is a tour de force.”

~Claire F. Fox, American Literature

“David Luis-Brown’s meticulously researched Waves of Decolonization contributes much to the nascent but growing field of transnational and hemispheric studies. . . . The author posits crucial, substantive questions, employing a comparative interdisciplinary methodology with far-reaching implications. In doing so, his study advances and contributes to the continuing transformation of American Studies.”

~Maria del Carmen Martinez, EIAL

“Luis-Brown must be commended for his ambitious, multidisciplinary approach. The sheer breadth of understanding he displays about so-called ‘native’, ‘primitive’, or auto-ethnographic works of literature, visual art, and political prose issuing from the Americas in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is staggering. . . . David Luis-Brown has written an innovative book which will usefully engage academics and students concerned with Afro-American, American, or comparative literature as well as Caribbean, Mexican, ‘post’ colonial, and transnational studies.”

~James Cullingham, Bulletin of Latin American Research

“This insightful study uses a much-needed hemispheric approach to track the listed groups’ reaction to the imperial whirlwind. Meticulously researched and documented, the book presents a literary-historical analysis covering the period from the 1880s to the 1930s. . . . In Waves of Decolonization, Luis-Brown has woven a rich tapestry of the anticolonial and anti-imperial discourse that accompanied the consolidation of U.S. hegemony. The book is a valuable contribution to scholars, students, and laypersons working in such varied fields as American, African, ethnic, Caribbean, and Latin American studies.”

~Jorge Chinea, History: Reviews of New Books