superficially disconnected, although critics have identified various levels of coherence and organization. The text incorporates a broad range of genres, ranging from documentary on local agricultural practices to sociological observations of the places visited and their inhabitants; Norman Grabo describes it as "an example of the American tradition of book-as-anthology and authorship-as-editing". Whereas early readings of the text tended to consider it "as a straightforward natural and social history of young America", critics now see it as combining elements of fiction and non-fiction in what Thomas Philbrick has termed a "complex artistry". In addition to its usual classification as a form of epistolary, philosophical travel narrative—comparable to Montesquieu's Persian Letters—the text has been considered as a novel, and as a romance. Themes Shift of tone Letters has been said to exhibit a "model of decline", as the optimistic tone of the early letters is disrupted and the text become increasingly pessimistic; there is a movement from a "joy, pride, wonder" at the spectacle of America, to the "images of the inhuman brutality of slavery". However, there is disagreement over whether this model of decline is produced by James' own disillusionment, or whether it is evidence of Crèvecœur's voice interceding into the narrative; further, critics disagree over where in the narrative the disillusionment occurs, variably placing it in the third, eighth and ninth letters. Relationship with the environment Among the most significant and recurring themes of Letters is that of the individual and society's relationship with their environment; the work has been read as an "impassioned, unqualified defense of American agrarianism". The theme appears especially in Letter II, III and in the letters describing Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, where James' views are expressive of the doctrine of environmental determinism, that human growth, development and activities are controlled by the physical environment. In Letter III he says: Men are like plants: the goodness and flavour of the fruit proceeds from the peculiar soil and exposition in which they grow. We are nothing but what we derive from the air we breathe, the climate we inhabit, the government we obey, the system of religion we profess, and the nature of our employment. Anna Carew-Miller suggests that what the text articulates on this subject is "the [cultural] myth that a man's relationship with the land confirms his masculinity and dignity as a citizen." Reception and legacy When Crèvecœur offered his manuscript essays to the