What do you think?
Rate this book
Letters from an American Farmer and Sketches of Eighteenth-Century America
America’s physical and cultural landscape is captured in these two classics of American history. Letters provides an invaluable view of the pre-Revolutionary and Revolutionary eras; Sketches details in vivid prose the physical setting in which American settlers created their history.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
501 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
29 people are currently reading
327 people want to read
About the author
J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur
40 books9 followersMichel Guillaume Jean de Crèvecœur (December 31, 1735 – November 12, 1813), naturalized in New York as John Hector Saint John, was a French-American writer. He was born in Caen, Normandy, France, to the comte and comtesse de Crèvecœur.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
Read
October 28, 2018I have to admit that, despite the fact that I hate Fox News as much as any other good liberal academic, Crevecoeur's fictional farmer was persuasive at selling me the same fictional narrative that Bill O'Reilly dishes out on a nightly basis. In the voice that will be familiar to anyone who listens to country music, James-the-farmer lauds the good common sense of hard working, Americans, who (unlike those over-educated, snooty, fancy-pants Europeans!) enjoy total social equality and individual freedom. Crevecoeur/James-the-farmer writes, "Men are like plants; the goodness and flavour of the fruit proceeds from the peculiar soil and exposition in which they grow." American soil is just better!
But before you pin a flag to your blazer lapel, you should know that a few chapters of America-worship later, James-the-farmer is walking through the woods when he comes across a slave in an open-air cage tied up in a tree. The slave's eyes have been pecked out by birds, his skin is crawling with flesh-eating insects. The blind, dying slave begs James to shoot him.
While it is by no means obvious what Crevecoeur's intention was in including this gruesome scene, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to argue that the aforementioned rich, wonderful soil of America is producing trees that bear the fruit of slavery. If you insert the reality of slave labor into almost any of our foundational narratives of early America, the narratives collapse faster than a card castle.
America's economic system was NOT so different from Europe's (where serfs worked under lords). If anything, America was WORSE than Europe, because at least serfs had some autonomy and some rights. Like all Americans, I like to think we're special. But, as is evident from the (purposefully?) self-defeating patriotic rhetoric in this book, we were only special for being worse. A telling detail is that this book enjoyed far more popularity in Europe than stateside.
Someone should really send a copy of this book to the Texas Board of Education, which has listed "American Exceptionalism" as the most crucial of the several outdated historic narratives they want to promulgate on the poor children of Texas. Or, if they and other conservatives must use that term, I propose redefining "exceptionalism." Europe banned slavery decades before Americans did, and, unlike America, Europe was built without slave labor. America was exceptional for continuing to allow slavery for decades after the rest of the world had banned it. An exceptionally terrible mistake.
But before you pin a flag to your blazer lapel, you should know that a few chapters of America-worship later, James-the-farmer is walking through the woods when he comes across a slave in an open-air cage tied up in a tree. The slave's eyes have been pecked out by birds, his skin is crawling with flesh-eating insects. The blind, dying slave begs James to shoot him.
While it is by no means obvious what Crevecoeur's intention was in including this gruesome scene, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to argue that the aforementioned rich, wonderful soil of America is producing trees that bear the fruit of slavery. If you insert the reality of slave labor into almost any of our foundational narratives of early America, the narratives collapse faster than a card castle.
America's economic system was NOT so different from Europe's (where serfs worked under lords). If anything, America was WORSE than Europe, because at least serfs had some autonomy and some rights. Like all Americans, I like to think we're special. But, as is evident from the (purposefully?) self-defeating patriotic rhetoric in this book, we were only special for being worse. A telling detail is that this book enjoyed far more popularity in Europe than stateside.
Someone should really send a copy of this book to the Texas Board of Education, which has listed "American Exceptionalism" as the most crucial of the several outdated historic narratives they want to promulgate on the poor children of Texas. Or, if they and other conservatives must use that term, I propose redefining "exceptionalism." Europe banned slavery decades before Americans did, and, unlike America, Europe was built without slave labor. America was exceptional for continuing to allow slavery for decades after the rest of the world had banned it. An exceptionally terrible mistake.
August 22, 2022
One of those semi-boring books they make you read for American History classes in college because nobody else back then wrote any better.
September 2, 2021
Read Letters 3, 4, 9, 12
February 19, 2021
What is an american? A dude who really really loves farming, I guess. Progressive towards indians and slaves for its time, talked about liberty and one's own land being the building blocks of a successful america. Interesting reading in our times where we still value individual liberty but live in a system that regularly robs us of it. For the most part the prose was a bit stilted tho.
March 14, 2008
I read this for class... Worth it if you are interested in a French gentleman's musings on American agrarianism gone mad....
April 22, 2019
An exceptionally interesting and at times very poetic book by an exceptionally interesting man, as much literary achievement as penetrating social commentary. J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur was a Frenchman who migrated to the North American colonies, traveled widely not just to the North and South but to the Caribbean, fought on the side of the French during the French and Indian War and then settled in New York as an English subject. Widely read, cultured and traveled, Crèvecoeur was in a unique position to take stock of the country he was calling home. In fact one could argue that Benjamin Franklin might have been the only American then who was more cosmopolitan, and even Franklin hadn’t traveled as widely in his native country.
Written in 1782, this collection of about two dozen fictitious “letters” by Crèvecoeur to Europeans wonderfully describes the America of that time. Part social commentary on Americans, Europeans and Indians and what it means to be an American (including amusing stereotypes of Quakers, Irish and German settlers), part description of the wilderness, the trees and animals and weather, it’s a fascinating, first-hand portrait of colonial America, unique in its scope and in its hopeful description of the endless possibilities that awaited anyone who came to the country. Crèvecoeur describes many of the qualities that made the land unique - the work ethic, the equality, the religious freedom, the various ethnicities living in peace, the boundless land and natural resources, the peaceful natives, the weather; everything that made the New World such a refreshing contrast to the Old. The language is often superbly poetic and describes the sheer liberation that a European would feel in coming to this faraway land and settling here. Crèvecoeur was quite enlightened for the times, denouncing slavery and celebrating freedom of religion (like Jefferson he was a deist).
For all his warm praise and astute observations, Crèvecoeur oddly enough was persecuted and imprisoned as a Monarchist during the Revolutionary War and was forced to flee to France, where after the war he became a liaison to the newly united colonies, interacting with Jefferson, Adams and others. His book became much more popular in Europe than in the States, and only in the early 20th century when Americans again started to view their origins romantically did it get traction. In spite of this rather anti-climactic coda, “Letters From an American Farmer” remains a uniquely literary portrait of the life and times of America before it became America, written by a unique observer.
Written in 1782, this collection of about two dozen fictitious “letters” by Crèvecoeur to Europeans wonderfully describes the America of that time. Part social commentary on Americans, Europeans and Indians and what it means to be an American (including amusing stereotypes of Quakers, Irish and German settlers), part description of the wilderness, the trees and animals and weather, it’s a fascinating, first-hand portrait of colonial America, unique in its scope and in its hopeful description of the endless possibilities that awaited anyone who came to the country. Crèvecoeur describes many of the qualities that made the land unique - the work ethic, the equality, the religious freedom, the various ethnicities living in peace, the boundless land and natural resources, the peaceful natives, the weather; everything that made the New World such a refreshing contrast to the Old. The language is often superbly poetic and describes the sheer liberation that a European would feel in coming to this faraway land and settling here. Crèvecoeur was quite enlightened for the times, denouncing slavery and celebrating freedom of religion (like Jefferson he was a deist).
For all his warm praise and astute observations, Crèvecoeur oddly enough was persecuted and imprisoned as a Monarchist during the Revolutionary War and was forced to flee to France, where after the war he became a liaison to the newly united colonies, interacting with Jefferson, Adams and others. His book became much more popular in Europe than in the States, and only in the early 20th century when Americans again started to view their origins romantically did it get traction. In spite of this rather anti-climactic coda, “Letters From an American Farmer” remains a uniquely literary portrait of the life and times of America before it became America, written by a unique observer.
July 28, 2023
A very valuable text on insight into the development of an American identity in the 17th century (if not for the read itself).
May 8, 2024
More bg obv but also some good farming anecdotes
June 18, 2009
I gave this book a 2 on the like-ability scale, though it would be higher on an importance scale. Written in 1782, George Washington said this series of letters was "too flattering" to be true (Norton intro). But, while Crevecoeur does spend a significant amount of time praising America as welcoming, hard-working, hearty place where any European would find it difficult to leave, he also includes scathing looks at slavery and the ignorance of people living in rural settings (particularly in the woods). Overall, this work offers great insight into the time in which it was written. I think that the main idea I'll take away from it is the message of America to newcomers according to the author: "Go thou and work and till; thou shalt prosper, provided thou be just, grateful, and industrious."
November 22, 2008
The genius of this book is, I think, the way it starts off with America as Utopia and slowly slides down the slope, bringing us to the "Negro" in a cage scene, which undermines absolutely everything that came before it. The glimpses of such ironies as the opium habits of Nantucket housewives and claims of Providence giving the Europeans land that Natives had inhabited for so long must serve to poke the conscience of anyone who would proclaim that America ever was, is at present or ever will be "perfect" the way it is. Even with our first African American President.
May 3, 2014
...well...he has an interesting take on frontier America, that is for sure...pollyanna-esque is an understatement...in fact, it gets tiresome very quickly..but if you can wade through his chamber of commerce bloviating it is an interesting primary document on life in the colonies and how enamoured of the new found liberties and opportunities many immigrants found upon arrival...the parlance is highly chronistic and sometimes difficult to decipher but, again, just wade through it and the message will soak in in spite of the Melvillian nomenclature...
June 23, 2012
I did a major report on this book for Humanities class in college. It is a wonderful portrait of early America that mas mostly read by Europeans at the time.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews