We are privileged to host in this issue an interrogation of the concept of nature in American studies, through Ian Tyrrell's “reinterpretation of American national parks in transnational and international perspective” and responses by Astrid Swenson, Paul Sutter, and Thomas Dunlap. As Tyrrell notes, that story of national parks offers a window not only on nature but also on the national space of an American exceptionalism, the bureaucratic dynamic behind that construction, and the role of public memory, “a process in which historians have been implicated.” Our thanks to the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford University, which hosted Tyrrell as a Visiting Professor in 2010–11, and to Stephen Tuck, as well as to the authors for making this collection possible.

In this issue, we are featuring critiques on topics from the poetry of Robert Creeley to the narratives of Studs Terkel to the challenge to Cold War liberalism. There are analyses of gender politics and identity from Oscar Wilde to Philip Roth, the observations of a Yankee merchant in France, and the paradox around the downfall of an American Jewish financier. And “imagination” has its place from the construction of domestic space to the appearance of Ciguapas in New York.

There are two round tables in this issue: on the print side, respondents discuss Alan Rice's work on the politics of memory in the black Atlantic and, in our electronic edition (http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=AMS), three scholars consider Hal Brands's evaluation of the Cold War in Latin America. And, between the print and electronic editions, we feature forty reviews of latest publications across American studies.