See America First

Hiestand, Orville O.Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.6
Word count
617K words
Chapters
62

Tags

English Originals Travel Human GeographyNature ObservationScenic JourneyRoad TripSlow ReadingDaily ReflectionsHeartwarming NarrativeLife EssaysDocumentary NarrativeExotic Culture

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.See America First by Charles J. Herr and Orville O. HiestandAuthor: Hiestand, Orville O.,Language: English, Class: E151: History: America: United States, Release Date: Nov 1, 2002

Editor's review

See America First is a work of American history in the Project Gutenberg collection, authored by Orville O. Hiestand and co-credited with Charles J. Herr. The title itself carries a hortatory tone, urging readers to turn their attention to the American land and come to know the nation's history and character. Classified under American history (E151), it is suitable as an original English text for understanding American historical narrative. The book's value lies not in offering a systematic general history but in presenting a particular era's author's observations and expressions on American history, through which readers can sense the tone, concerns, and value orientations of early American historical writing. As a public-domain e-book, it is easy to search, cite, and read comparatively. In terms of reading scenarios, it suits use as material in English original-text reading courses, self-study of American history topics, or digital-humanities textual analysis. Readers are advised to read with a questioning awareness, noting how the author selects historical facts and organizes narrative, rather than treating the book's views as the sole authoritative conclusion. Overall, this is a classic public-domain text suitable as supplementary historical material and language material, not as an introductory guide.

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Reading tips

  1. First read the table of contents and chapter titles to establish the book's narrative framework, then read chapter by chapter closely.
  2. While reading, mark the author's selections of historical facts and evaluative statements, distinguishing narrative from opinion.
  3. Read alongside a modern American history textbook to verify background and dates.
  4. If used for corpus analysis, first run word-frequency and thematic-keyword statistics, then return to the original text for close reading.

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

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62

FAQ

Is this book a systematic general history of America? No. It is a public-domain text in the American history category, closer to a particular author's observations and narrative of American history than to a modern systematic general-history textbook. Readers should treat it as supplementary historical material or an English original text, not as an introductory book for obtaining a complete historical framework.
How difficult is the English, and what level is it suitable for? As an early English work, its sentence patterns and wording carry period characteristics, and the overall difficulty is above average. Readers with university-level English reading ability who are willing to verify background information will progress more easily; beginners can start with chapter summaries, then read selected passages, and need not insist on finishing it in one go.
Why is the book titled See America First? The title has a hortatory tone, urging readers to first come to know the history and character of the American land. Combined with its American history classification, it can be understood as a guiding reading posture rather than a strict methodological claim. Its specific meaning must be judged in light of the main text's narrative, and should not be over-interpreted apart from the text.

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About the author

Hiestand, Orville O. Author

Hiestand, Orville O. is an author about whom very little public information is available; all that is currently known is that one work appears under his name, See America First. Judging by its title, the book likely belongs to the genre of American domestic travel and scenery writing, encouraging readers to know and explore their own country before venturing abroad. Such works were common in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century, often recounting journeys in an easy tone while touching on local history, natural landscapes, and regional customs, with the aim of promoting domestic tourism. Since his birth and death dates, nationality, and professional background cannot be verified, neither his life nor the full range of his writing can be outlined, and only the briefest note on the surviving title is possible. Readers wishing to learn about this author should turn directly to See America First and form a sense of his perspective and narrative style from the text itself.