Nature and Progress in American Culture

The essays gathered in this special issue of "Letterature d’America" revisit what has been, and perhaps still is, a major concern in American life and experience, revolving around “the problem” ‒ in fact “the theme, the American theme,” in Perry Miller words ‒ of “an irreconcilable opposition between Nature and civilization.” This paradox was supposed to be felt as peculiarly American, and involved both the life of the individual and the destiny of the country, the “national ego” and the “nation of futurity,” where enterprise and spirituality, practical calculus and natural sublimity blended in “the most utilitarian conquest,” in Miller’s words again, “known to history.” This problem is proposed here through different and fluid approaches meant to highlight some implications and effects of the dialectical encounters and frictions (whether overt or hidden) between nature and progress, largely intended.