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In this volume, James Dunkerley visits the Americas of the 1850s. Drawing on a range of contemporary sources from Walt Whitman to Darwin, Trollope, Marx and Sarmiento, the author adopts an Atlanticist perspective - Ireland for instance, is treated as an American country in exile - for this appraisal of the first steps in American modernity. "Americana" is arranged around major themes of time and space, culture, political economy and international relations. Between these more general discussions are transcripts of three court cases from the period which both divert and illuminate: John Mitchel's 1848 conviction for treason in Dublin led him through Bermuda, Tasmania and Nicaragua before he joined the Confederate cause in the US Civil War. Myra Gaines' suit for the return of her legacy in New Orleans reveals her Sligo-born father to have conspired against Jefferson and treated with Napoleon's agents in the sale of Louisiana. Mariano Munoz's trial for releasing a prisoner on Good Friday in the style of Pontius Pilate draws the curtain back on Francisco Burdett O'Connor, prefect of Tarija, elder brother of the Chartist leader Feargus and Bolivar's chief of staff.

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