Poet, social scientist, and literary essayist, Reuel Denney is best known perhaps as co-author of
The Lonely Crowd
with David Riesman and Nathan Glaser. These selected essays and poems, edited by Tony Quagliano, span a wide range of topics and more than a half century of American cultural history.
The topics range from international finance to leisure, from Greek mythology to Disney, from American poetry to the great oral tradition of Polynesian poetry. Woven throughout is Denney's fascinating memoir Experience in the World, an autobiographical meditation on America in the twentieth century. This unique collection presents one poet and scholar's encounter with the complexities of American life. American culture, Denney shows us, is the product of the many cultures of the world; it is indeed a Feast of Strangers. This is a work for scholars, students, and other researchers of American literature and culture studies.