'Johnson's argument goes straight to the heart of novel studies: fiction privileged property as the basis of enfranchisement and so limited the democratizing process it envisioned. The genius of her book is to come at this paradox through the curious body of fiction written during the period following revolutions in North America and France for the expressed purpose of exposing ... Read morethe limits of the Lockean model of government. This strikingly fresh look at the Jacobin novel shows it embracing fiction as culture's most powerful political medium and challenging the premises of modern nation building. In focusing on these particular novels, she therefore deals with the very topics that preoccupy scholars who read and write about fiction in any epoch, namely, the gendered identity of citizenship, the restriction of political agency, and the difficulty of imagining a future of collective transformation.' - Nancy Armstrong, Nancy Duke Lewis Professor, Brown University, USA Show Less