Inspired by Toni Morrison's call for an interracial approach to American literature, and by recent efforts to globalize American literary studies, this book ranges widely in its case-study approach to canonical and non-canonical authors. Leading critic Robert S. Levine addresses transatlanticism, the Black Atlantic, citizenship, empire, temperance, climate change, black nationalism, book history, temporality, Kantian transnational aesthetics, and a number of other issues.