Skip to main content

The Secret Life Of A Developing Nation

November 2024
1min read


It was a crude, raw, hard-drinking, hard-fighting country, a place of brutal diversions and inscrutable customs. It was America in the first half of the nineteenth century, and it was not at all the tranquil, simple, rural republic that is so firmly lodged in the popular imagination. In a triumphant feat of the most challenging sort of historical research, Jack Larkin has retrieved the irretrievable: the intimate facts of everyday life that defined what people were really like, the all-important minutiae that almost nobody bothered to record. Larkin will introduce you to those who came before you, and they’re likely to make you a little uncomfortable.

Enjoy our work? Help us keep going.

Now in its 75th year, American Heritage relies on contributions from readers like you to survive. You can support this magazine of trusted historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it by donating today.

Donate