“This is an excellent anthology. It complicates our ideas about 'regionalism,' links nineteenth- and twentieth-century writers, places issues of race and ethnicity at the center, makes us rethink the academy's usual (and limiting) preoccupation with fiction as the only important genre, and effectively deconstructs the scholarly trivialization of local color writing as a 'minor' American tradition. This is a volume that is challenging, not nostalgic. It looks back but also at the present, asking us how our thinking about the 'local' shapes and affects major issues today, such as the environment, race relations, gender dynamics, and attitudes toward sexuality.”—Elizabeth Ammons, author of Conflicting Stories: American Women Writers at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

“A stimulating collection of essays in which leading theorists of regionalism join with talented younger scholars in remapping the field. Revisionary in every sense, Breaking Boundaries asks fresh questions about traditional stalwarts, 'regionalizes' figures hitherto examined under other rubrics, and introduces readers to new authors and texts.”—Carolyn L. Karcher, author of The First Woman in the Republic: A Cultural Biography of Lydia Maria Child