Society, Manners and Politics in the United States

Chevalier, Michel, 1806-1879Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.8
Word count
907K words
Chapters
91

Tags

English Originals Social Sciences Political SystemTravelogueSocial ObservationAmerican SocietyMoral DilemmaCross-Cultural View

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Society, Manners and Politics in the United States by Michel ChevalierAuthor: Chevalier, Michel, 1806-1879,Language: English, Class: E151: History: America: United States, Release Date: May 25, 2014

Editor's review

This book is Michel Chevalier's record of American society, manners and politics, a free Project Gutenberg eBook written in English and classed under American history. Its value lies not in conclusions about present-day America but in showing how a nineteenth-century European observer understood American institutions, social habits and public life; it can serve as a text for studying transatlantic exchanges of ideas and early images of America. Readers see American democracy, commercial spirit and class life through European eyes, and can compare it with contemporary travel writing. Because it was written long ago, some judgments carry the limitations of their time, and it should be read with a critical sense of its value as historical source material. It suits consultation from a comparative perspective rather than use as a guide to modern conditions.

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Reading tips

  1. Read the preface and chapter summaries first to establish the author's period of observation and standpoint.
  2. Read it alongside Tocqueville and other contemporary observers, noting similarities and differences.
  3. Mark judgments shaped by period prejudice as you read, as an exercise in criticizing historical sources.
  4. Read by theme, such as manners, politics and economy, rather than page by page.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

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FAQ

Which period of America does this book discuss? The author lived in the nineteenth century, and his observations are based on American society and politics of that time. The materials do not give a specific year of composition; readers should determine the period from the author's dates and internal evidence, and should not apply it to the present.
Are the book's views still reliable today? Treat it as a historical source rather than as conclusions. It reflects the perspective of a nineteenth-century European observer and contains the limitations and personal prejudices of its time. Its value lies in understanding how people then viewed America, not in verifying present-day facts.
What background knowledge is needed to read it? Basic English reading ability is advisable, along with a rough knowledge of nineteenth-century American political institutions and European industrialization. Otherwise names, institutions and the context of debates may be hard to follow.

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About the author

Chevalier, Michel, 1806-1879 Author

Michel Chevalier (1806–1879) was a French economist, engineer, and political writer. The library holds two of his works: Society, Manners and Politics in the United States and L'isthme de Panama. The former records and comments on American social customs and political institutions, while the latter focuses on transport and the proposed cutting of the Isthmus of Panama, reflecting his enduring interest in economic development, infrastructure, and public affairs. His writing tends to combine firsthand observation with policy analysis, addressing practical problems in a pragmatic style. Though the two works differ in subject, both show his habit of linking economic perspectives with engineering questions. Public information about the details of his life is limited, so no further inferences are made here; readers may approach his viewpoint and argumentative manner through the works mentioned above.