In these nine essays Vilhelm Moberg blends history with poetic license to create an America viewed by a Swedish emigrant in the middle of the 20th century.
Roger McKnight’s translation of The Unknown Swedes is the first English-language book to reveal Moberg’s views on emigration, America, and Sweden. In the 1950 edition of The Unknown Swedes, Moberg was guardedly optimistic about the United States. In 1968 Moberg, distraught at America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, appended the chapter "Twenty Years Later" to the new edition of The Unknown Swedes. This essay attacks "vulgar patriotism" in America.