Informed by a knowledge of political thought and by close attention to poetic texture, Disowned by Memory is above all a study of moral psychology. The idea of personal consciousness which we now take for granted, yet which has been vital to the development of modern poetry, had much of its real beginning in Wordsworth. More than any other work of criticism, this book tells how that discovery occurred.

Based on two lectures given in 2014 by the author during the Tanner Lectures on Human Values delivered at Princeton University, followed by four commentaries by eminent scholars and the author's response to the commentators. Anderson questions the authoritarian control workers have been forced to give to their employers in order to remain employed and historically why this goes against American ideology of free market values. "One in four American...