Ruins, Revolution, and Manifest Destiny ― John Lloyd Stephens Creates the Maya

Having led students in travel to the Galapagos Islands, Haiti, Belize, and Guatemala, Lenz (English, Chatham U.) has boots-on-the-ground experience to fortify his longstanding interest in the 19th-century travel narratives of John Lloyd Stevens, whose immensely popular writings shaped American perceptions of Central America and, also, reflected American nationalistic and imperialistic beliefs. For modern readers, this study explores the many interesting avenues for investigation in Stephens's Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan (1841) and Incidents of Travel in Yucatan (1843), among other works. Annotation c2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

William E. Lenz is Pontious Professor of English and Chair of the Humanities at Chatham University. Since 1992, he has traveled abroad with students to the Galapagos Islands, Haiti, Belize, and Guatemala. He is the author of Fast Talk and Flush Times: The Confidence Man as a Literary Convention (1985) and The Poetics of the Antarctic: A Study in Nineteenth-Century American Cultural Perceptions (1995).