This volume of essays is the first to present in English a significant body of recent German literary fantasies and ideological speculations concerned with the United States. Included are reflections on the historical background, surveys of such major themes as the pursuit of happiness and the demythologization of its various aspects, and separate discussions of fiction, drama, and poetry in the form of general appraisals or special studies of representative writers and works. The volume ends with a political section dealing with the changing attitudes of Hans Magnus Enzensberger and Gunter Grass."