<DIV><DIV>This book examines why several American literary and intellectual icons found themselves to be pioneering scholars and lifelong students of the Hispanic world.  The author asserts that these gifted Americans focused on the Hispanic world that they might shape their own country's identity after Independence and the War of 1812, a crucial time for the young republic, and that they found inspiration in a most unlikely place: the seat of the collapsing Spanish empire.</DIV></DIV>