Martha Banta’s first book on Henry James, Henry James and the Occult: The Great Extension, appeared in 1972 and remains an essential part of the secondary literature on James’s supernatural fiction. In the years since the appearance of Henry James and the Occult, Banta has published six other monographs on a wide array of topics. She has earned, and with good reason, numerous accolades, and the variety of topics that her books have covered reveal her to be a cultural critic in the true sense of the term. But in spite of the significance of that first book, none of the books since 1972 has focused primarily on James. And yet Banta has always remained a regular participant at conferences on James and contributed numerous articles and book chapters on James. The great question, then, was when a second book on James would appear. The wait for that second book is over, and Henry James: An Alien’s “History” of America proves worth the wait.