Colonial Revivals: The Nineteenth-Century Lives of Early American Books. By Lindsay DiCuirci. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019. Pp. 279. $69.95 cloth.)

Abstract

THE NEW ENGLAND QUARTERLY primary sources date to the 1820s, 1830s, and 1840s, an era she quite rightly calls "antebellum" in the text. I also question the author's use of two terms associated with critical theory. She asserts that the transient poor "comprised a subaltern class" (2, 6, 180), but she does not develop this idea or situate her study within the field of postcolonial studies, where "subaltern" is most widely used. She also characterizes the transient poor as "stateless" (10), but does not pursue the implication that these people had no national identity in the modern sense of the term.Vagrants and Vagabonds is a rewarding book. Professor O'Brassill-Kulfan's commitment to wide archival research, excellent writing, and robust scholarly engagement make her work a pleasure to read and a model of good historical method.