The Historian's Huck Finn

Book excerpt: Putting Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in historical context, connecting it to pivotal issues like slavery, class, money, and American economic expansion, this book engages readers by presenting American history through the lens of a great novel. Dighe presents Twain's book as a historical novel that brings up key historical issues both in the antebellum period in which the novel is set and in the post-Reconstruction period in which it was written. This book identifies how Huckleberry Finn underscores perhaps the cruelest aspect of slavery: the involuntary separation of husbands, wives, and children from each other. This title is ideal reading for college and high school students taking American history classes as well as general readers with an interest in American history, Mark Twain, or both. Extensive annotations are included that are useful, accessible, and interesting to readers without specialized knowledge of 19th-century history.