4Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur was a farmer and diplomat in New England during the American Revolutionary War. These are his valuable observations of rural life and ordinary citizens of a nation soon to attain independence.

While the military skirmishes and personalities of the era - such as the Founding Fathers - are well-recorded, everyday living in America at the time the United States burst into existence is not nearly as known by historians. These eloquent accounts of how average Americans lived amid the upheaval of Revolution are unique, memorable and authentic. It is fortunate that the honest observations of de Crèvecoeur survive as an abiding portrait of citizens in a Republic struggling for recognition and independence.

The New England of the 18th century was a rural society; industry was scarce and undeveloped, and the peoples worked with their hands rather than with machines. Many labored hard for years to buy their own parcel of land; the author's depictions of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard are vivid - the behaviors, manners and trading are detailed in a plain yet enjoyable style.

The society of 1780s America is, thanks to de Crèvecoeur's eloquence, easy to visualize. The native wildlife - which the farmers lived in close proximity to - include snakes and birds majestic in their beauty. The author's serene observations at times stray to the philosophical, as the reader sees the beginnings of a new nation unfurl day-by-day, person-by-person.