Reading The Power of Sympathy | Alexandria
Read The Power of Sympathy by William Hill Brown. Challenging America's moral hypocrisy, this groundbreaking 1789 novel exposes how puritanical values enable the very vices they condemn. Brown's radical thesis - that repression breeds transgression - eerily foreshadows modern psychological insights about shame cycles and social control. The first American novel remains a mirror to our own conflicted relationship with desire and virtue.