Contents
Preface. Toward a Theatrics of Culture
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Prologue. Democratic Spectacles: Medium, Message, and Metaphor
I. A Theater of the World, to 1630
1. Politics, History, and Theatrum Mundi: Some Early Formulations
2. American Origins I: A Theater of Theaters
3. American Origins II: A Theater against Theaters
4. Prospero in Virginia: The Example of Captain John Smith
II. The Theater of Faith, 1630-1730
5. A Theater on a Hill: Puritans and the Rhetoric of Performance
6. Playing the (Trans)Script: The Antinomian Crisis
7. Theatrou Mestoi: The Example of Cotton Mather
III. The Theater of Action, 1676-1776
8. The Field or the Stage: Democracy, Theater, and Anglo-American Culture
9. Theater of Blood: The Rituals of Republican Revolution
10. Providential Actor: The Example of John Adams
IV. The Theater of Glory, 1776-1789
11. A Theater Just Erected: America at War
12. Play and Earnest on the Postwar Stage
13. Stage Metaphor and the New Republic
Epilogue. Instant Theater
Works Cited
Index