The world looks to the example of America for many things: for the high road to opportunity, industry, progress and wealth; for ideals of freedom and equality; yet there is also the radically solitary road of personal independence, self-reliance, and wisdom. Progress and wisdom appear to run on parallel paths through American history, each defined by its own conception of the individual, on courses that seldom intersect. In this brief introduction to a complex tradition, we offer a radical re-imagining of the single-file “road less traveled” of “Plain Living and High Thinking in American Culture.”