Another writer often associated with Irish topics who has now tackled a deeply American topic is Irish-born poet and critic Denis Donoghue. In "The American Classics: A Personal Essay," Donoghue uses his famous brains, wit and ability to mingle the personal with the historical to explore the writings of Herman Melville, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walt Whitman and Mark Twain. Donoghue anoints these writers the most important American authors, and contrasts their American spirit with the Irish sensibility with which he is more intimately familiar. He then explores the broader forces which have shaped not just these authors and their books but America in general, including the contemporary world superpower, of which Donoghue is not exactly a fan. Donoghue, for example, sees in Emersonian individualism as the roots of imperialism which have come to fruition in present-day Iraq. Argumentative and erudite, "The American Classic" is far from a beach read but it is another eye-opening work from Donoghue, who is currently University Professor and Henry James Professor of English and American Letters at New York University. ($27 / 304 pages / Yale University Press)