Imagined empires: Incas, Aztecs, and the New World of American literature, 1771-1876

Introduction: ancient America in the post-colonial national imaginary

Commencements: pre-Columbian worlds and Philip Freneau's literature of American empire

Diplomacy: Joel Barlow's scripting and subscripting of ancient America

Noctography: Prescott's sketchings of Aztecs and Incas

Mutations: Melville, representation, and South American history

Passage: two rivulets and the obscurity of American maps.