Two very small, very early American towns stand out from all others in the cultural impact they have exerted on American life: Williamsburg, Virginia and Concord, Massachusetts. Both were founded in the 1630s, both were centers of revolutionary life, both were barely one tenth the size of a Philadelphia, Boston or New York. Yet both would give birth to new forms of public and private life that would revolutionize America. This course will examine the special character of these two microcosms of Americanness, and seek the meaning of the cultural migration from Williamsburg to Walden.