Dow kept detailed notes, military maps, army directives and a 1942 printed Christmas Dinner Menu, that lists all members of Company G, 350th Regiment, 88th Infantry Division, where he served most of his basic training. This book provides insight into the performance of a premier unit comprised principally of civilians drafted into combat against powerful Nazi armies led by "Smiling Albert" Kesselring, one of Hitler's favorite generals. Dow uses highway drawings to detail the locations of more than thirty Division Headquarters' Command Posts from the empty school building just north of Naples...

With a fresh and exciting perspective, Narrating Class in American Fiction offers close readings of American fiction from 1850-1940 in the context of literary and political history to illuminate the class discourses of its writers. Dow skillfully argues that the place of class in literary analysis has far to go in catching up to the panoply of "canonical" textual approaches. This book explores the uneasy attention American authors gave to class in their production of social identities and fills a gap in American literature scholarship.

Focusing on American fiction from 1850-1940, "Narrating Class in American Fiction" offers close readings in the context of literary and political history to detail the uneasy attention American authors gave to class in their production of social identities.