Moses in America

This book explores the retelling of the life of Moses in three 20th-century American narratives: Moses in Red by Lincoln Steffens; Moses Man of the Mountain by Zora Neale Hurston; and Cecil B. DeMille''s film The Ten Commandments. Wright''s analysis reveals that the figure of Moses has strong currency in American culture at many levels: mainstream white and black intellectual and academic religious and secular. More generally she seeks throughout to address the question of why these three artists believed their arguments - and wright insists that they are arguments - were best advanced by the re-presentation of an ancient biblical narrative.