A Man of the People (short story)

"A Man of the People" is one of four connected short stories in Ursula K. Le Guin's "Four Ways to Forgiveness".

Infobox short story |
name = A Man of the People
book title = Four Ways to Forgiveness(four short stories)
translator =
author = Ursula K LeGuin
country = United States
language = English
series = The Hainish Cycle
genre = Science Fiction short story
published_in = First published in the USA
publication_type =
publisher = HarperPrism
media_type = Print (hardback and paperback)
pub_date = 1995
ISBN = 0 575 06301 7
preceded_by =
followed_by =

The four tales all deal with events on the planets Yeowe and Werel, but this story starts on Hain. The history of the Hainish people goes back three million years, and they placed colonies on many planets, including Earth and Werel. From the older high-tech culture there was some sort of crash and a re-building on a wiser basis, linking with their former colonies as the Ekumen.

Evidence of the former high-tech life is all around, along with proof of the current indifference to it:

:Stse is an almost-island, separated from the mainland of the great south continent by marshes and tidal bogs, where millions of wading birds gather to mate and nest. Ruins of an enormous bridge are visible on the landward side, and another half-sunk fragment of ruin is the basis of the town's boat pier and breakwater. Vast works of other ages encumber all Hain, and are no more and no less venerable or interesting to the Hainish than the test of the landscape.

The present-day people of Hain have starships but prefer to live simple lives with no more technology than they have to have. Many of them live in a changeless tribal order, resembling that of Earth's Pueblo people.