Title: New travels in the United States of America
Description: This book presents a fascinating account of a Frenchman's post-Revolutionary War journey through the newly founded United States visiting as many states as possible and commenting on the people and the lands he saw. According to the author, Brissot, French consuls viewed post-war America as being a place "falling to ruin" with a "detestable" constitution. Brissot saw things entirely differently and found that America was treading new ground with a constitution truly being written for the people where the people were kings with "an elective chief, who shakes hands with a laborer, who has no guards at his gate, who walks on foot..." It's refreshing to see an outsider perspective of America's beginnings with a foreign traveler visiting the country shortly after the end of the Revolutionary War. It's a perspective not tinged by modern views adopted centuries later. It's one that sees what was a radical shift from traditional governments to a whole new way of life that helped shape the constitutions of later governments.

This particular version of the book has a couple problems. One is that it is written in the typestyle of the time where the small letter "s" looks like an "f" and a few other differences. The greater problem is that the book has a fair amount of deterioration with significant brown spots and blotches on all the pages. There's a 1919 version of the same titled book here, attributed to an unknown author, that is much easier to read.
Subjects: Description and travel
Places: United States
Time periods: 1782