This study investigates why Ralph Waldo Emerson’s intellectual legacy remains a central, recurring reference point for twentieth-century critics attempting to define the American cultural identity. Randall Fuller, a scholar of American literature, utilizes archival research and previously unpublished materials to analyze how prominent critics such as Van Wyck Brooks, Perry Miller, F.O. Matthiessen, and Sacvan Bercovitch utilized Emersonian thought to construct their own critical frameworks. The book argues that these scholars did not merely interpret Emerson, but actively reconstructed him to suit their specific political and aesthetic agendas, thereby shaping the institutional history of American literary studies.

Scholars and historians of American literature recognize this work as a significant contribution to the history of the discipline. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose and the depth of the archival research presented by the author.