A Companion to American Art is a fascinating selection of thirty-six essays which will surely be scoped by thousands of historians of American art, and as surely be read by at least thirty-six of them. Except for the final essay by Andrew Hemingway, the reader learns nothing about American art history, but all-too-much about contrasting new-but-arcane methodologies, and critiques of traditional literature in the field. It also abounds with newly minted terminology, based on the manipulation to the point of unrecognizability of existing ones. The English language thus becomes both richer and poorer: richer, because of the extensive additions of terminology; poorer, since the verbiage only obfuscates to the point of unuseability (like this last only vastly more impenetrable). The book is a testament to the divide between art historical research and a need for (unnecessary?) re-invention.