American Earthquake

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The American Earthquake amply conveys the astonishing breadth of Edmund Wilson's talent, provides an unparalleled vision of one of the most troubling periods in American history, and, perhaps inadvertently, offers a self-portrait comparable to The Education of Henry Adams. During a twelve-month period in 1930 and 1931, Edmund Wilson wrote a series of lengthy articles which he then collected in a book called American Jitters: A Year of the Slump. The resulting chronicle was hailed by the New York Times as "the best reporting that the period of depression has brought forth in the United States, " and forms the heart of the present volume. In prose that is by turns dramatic and naturalistic, inflammatory and evocative, satirical and droll, Wilson painted an unforgettable portrait of a time when "the whole structure of American society seemed actually to be going to pieces." The American Earthquake bookends this chronicle with a collection of Wilson's non-literary articles-including criticism, reportage, and some fiction-from the years of "The Follies, " 1923-1928, and the dawn of the New Deal, 1932-1934. During this period, Wilson had grown from a little-known journalist to one of the most important American literary and social critics of the century.