Historicizing Modernism

John Kasper was a militant far-right activist who first came to prominence with his violent campaigns against desegregation in the Civil Rights era. Ezra Pound was the seminal figure in Anglo-American modernist literature and one of the most important poets of the 20th century. This is the first book to comprehensively explore the extensive correspondence - lasting over a decade and numbering hundreds of letters - between the two men.

John Kasper and Ezra Pound examines the mutual influence the two men exerted on each other in Pound''s later life: how John Kasper developed from a devotee of Pound''s poetry to an active right-wing agitator; how Pound''s own ideas about race and American politics developed in his discussions with Kasper and how this informed his later poetry. Shedding a disturbing new light on Ezra Pound''s committed engagement with extreme right-wing politics in Civil Rights-era America, this is an essential read for students of 20th-century literature.