"What do the eighteenth-century Gothic novels, typified by Ann Radcliffe, have to do with sixth-century racial histories of the Ostrogoths, or with the so-called "Gothicist" historiography about England's "ancient constitution" that was prominent during the Civil War?

Rethinking and adapting the theoretical framework and critical methods of Michael Foucault's archaeology of knowledge and arguments about power relations, Edward Jacobs's Accidental Migrations offers a new consideration of the nature of the Gothic.".

"This researched and closely argued study demonstrates how, despite their substantive and circumstantial disparity, all of the discursive traditions associated with the English word "Gothic" make language interact with the same four fundamental activities: migration, collection and display, balance, and rediscovery."--BOOK JACKET.