"How does globalism affect the books we read, and the way we read them? A leading scholar investigates." * New York Times Book Review * "Few scholars active today can claim to have done as much as David Damrosch to shape the discipline of comparative literature in the United States. . . . Damrosch writes with great clarity and care, vividly bringing individual figures and their ideas to life. . . . [ He] not only displays the breadth of his own personal canon, but also argues compellingly for the idea that our understanding of a given text is always enhanced by comparing it with other texts, whether or not the pairings are conventional or expected."---Alexander Beecroft, Modern Philology "No summary could do justice to the wealth of writers, works, and critics discussed in this book, so my recommendation is that readers just lose themselves in this celebration of what comparative literature is and aspires to be."---César Domínguez, Modern Language Quarterly