Author Description

This innovative multicultural reader gathers together diaries, histories, autobiographies, short stories, and excerpts from novels to bring the many facets of the American experience to life, from sixteenth-century explorations to this century's ongoing saga of immigration and acculturation. Extending the traditional boundaries of the American literary canon, the editors first offer a comprehensive overview of the history of multicultural social and literary patterns in the United States, and then present a wealth of richly diverse stories--construing that term in the broadest possible sense--from both celebrated and lesser-known authors emphasizing pluralistic experience. Whenever possible, they present narratives of cross-cultural contact and exchange, rather than reports of cultures observed in isolation. Offering a uniquely broad range of readings within a strong thematic structure, Kaleidoscope is an enjoyable and enlightening reader for anyone interested in American literature and history, or the new emphasis on multiculturalism.