Audibly Speaking: Listening to History
One of the Great Essays in American History: Crevecoeur’s “What, Then, is this New Man, the American?
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Hector St. John de Crevecouer, a French immigrant to American wrote this classic essay, “What, Then, is this New Man, the American?” in 1782, as American Independence from Britain loomed. Was he correct in his descriptions of Americans then? Do his descriptions accurately describe Americans today? How was he wrong then, if he was, and how do his descriptions fail to characterize Americans today, if indeed they do?