American MetempsychosisThe transmigration of souls is no fable. I would it were, but men and women are only half human. With these words, Ralph Waldo Emerson confronts a dilemma that illuminates the formation of American individualism: to evolve and become fully human requires a heightened engagement with history. Americans, Emerson argues, must realize historys chronology in themselvesbecause their own minds and bodies are its evolving record. Whereas scholarship has