{"product_id":"in-historys-grip-1","title":"In History's Grip","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eIn History's Grip\u003c\/i\u003e concentrates on the literature of Philip Roth, one of America's greatest writers, and in particular on \u003ci\u003eAmerican Pastoral\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eI Married a Communist\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Human Stain\u003c\/i\u003e. Each of these novels from the 1990s uses Newark, New Jersey, to explore American history and character. Each features a protagonist who grows up in and then leaves Newark, after which he is undone by a historically generated crisis. The city's twentieth-century decline from immigrant metropolis to postindustrial disaster completes the motif of history and its terrifying power over individual destiny.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eIn History's Grip\u003c\/i\u003e is the first critical study to foreground the city of Newark as the source of Roth's inspiration, and to scrutinize a subject Roth was accused of avoiding as a younger writer—history. In so doing, the book brings together the two halves of Roth's decades-long career: the first featuring characters who live outside of history's grip; the second, characters entrapped in historical patterns beyond their ken and control.\u003c\/p\u003e\n","brand":"Michael Kimmage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43572202111158,"sku":"9780804783675","price":59.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0251\/4980\/0541\/files\/9780804783675_9cae2d94-a02d-4a38-bd4d-9861820d1f14.jpg?v=1727355139","url":"https:\/\/combined-academic.myshopify.com\/products\/in-historys-grip-1","provider":"Combined Academic Publishers - Mare Nostrum Group","version":"1.0","type":"link"}