In this provocative and vigorously argued interdisciplinary study of the development of institutional censorship, Clare Spark explores the complexities of 20th-century American cultural politics through the protagonists of the Melville Revival. She investigates closely the history of the Revival and its key critics, who manipulated Melville's life and writings in the service of their own particular social and political agendas. Although often boldly conjectural and speculative, Spark's assertions are based on her meticulous and thorough exploration of either newly opened or previously...