This book is an analysis of the social criticism and the political implications of rhetorical strategies in personal-political (nonfictional) narratives by liberal American writers from the 18th century till the 1970s. Using the theories of Mikhail Bakhtin, Schueller examines works by Benjamin Franklin, Henry David Thoreau, Henry James, Henry Adams, Jane Addams, James Agee, Norman Mailer, and Maxine Hong Kingston.