I am a museum director, and this book was recommended to me by one of our docents who is researching her family history. I checked it out from the library, but it was far too thick for me to read in 3 weeks, and it had a huge waiting list so I could not renew it. So I bought my own copy -- and it was well worth it! Admittedly, I am only on the second part of the book (which includes my own ancestry), but I have learned SO MUCH already about the early settlement of America. Part of why it is taking me so long to read it is because I am savoring every word. The histories on regional languages alone make the book worth far more than the asking price. I have recommended this book to countless people, and will continue to do so. Like I said in the title -- this is a FANTASTIC book!

As someone with a keen interest in the American Civil War and its origins, I found Fischer's Albion's Seed to be extremely valuable. Although the period it describes is mostly colonial leading up to the American war for independence from England, the four folkways documented therein clearly delineate the religious, cultural, economic and even environmental forces that lined up to bring about that most seminal event for modern America, the war of 1861-1865.

The origins of slavery and why it took hold in tidewater Chesapeake areas and not Massachusetts is described by Fischer not only in terms of religious and social values but environmental as well in terms of differing mortality rates between African slaves in the two regions, thereby making slavery more economically feasible in Virginia. The regional culture of tidewater Chesapeake created slavery, not the other way around.

The controversy of territorial expansion of the United States in mid-nineteenth century, and whether these new lands would be slave or free, set the stage for the squaring off of the combined ideas of Puritan ordered liberty and Quaker reciprocal liberty (Lincoln was descended from both Puritans and Quakers) against the combination of hierarchical liberty of the tidewater cavaliers and the individualistic liberty of the people of the southern backcountry, who, although they owned few slaves, possessed an acute sense of personal honor and loved to fight.

It is a stretch to say that the American Civil War would have still happened without slavery. However, neither is it "Lost Cause" mythology to say that the North and South represented two distinct cultures, formed primarily by two each of the folkways of Albion's Seed. Had mid-nineteenth century America been one culture, then the slavery issue could certainly have been settled without warfare.

I have sometimes wondered what I am. I am of course me, but sometimes it seems there is no "we" that quite fits the "me". I am hardly alone in this and there are probably many Americans that feel this way.
Albion's Seed is a grand overview of where America comes from. Where our values and habits were born.
The author traces the history of four intertwining British cultures that he says are the foundation of America. These to put it roughly would be the Yankees, the Phillys, The Southern Gentry, and the Scots-Irish "Rednecks". He gives them all a more or less sympathetic protrayal showing strengths and weaknesses from each culture.
As an Oregonian I am probably more Yankee in blood then anything else. Or at least I would like to think I am a sharp New England son of the cold North Sea though my home state's cultural outlook really seems rather "Philly" by the description of the book. Which is perhaps as well as the "Philly" culture while least congenial to my imagination(though not unattractive even there)is most likely to leave me alone. But in any case I can see elements of all four in my habitual outlook. Some of the customs described I recognize as a relation to the way I was brought up. My Church, for instance, is governed in a New England sort of way with regular "town meetings" of the congregation, to choose deacons and review policy matters. I also recognize the Southern idea that citizenship is a badge of pride(this was corrupted by the way into a justification for slavery; Southerners were not being hypocritical in denying freedom to others-they thought one of the points of freedom was that it was a posession you could brag about), and the glorifying of honor(despite the distastefulness of some aspects of the old honor code). I can also appreciate the famed scots-irish orneryness a little even though I could never manage to live with it. And I very much admire the "Philly" ideal of liberty for all. It is probably an accident of geography but it is wholly fitting that America's first capital was Philadelphia.
Albion's Seed details the customs of the four strands with their complex adaptation to life. It shows how they confronted the day to day challenges and opportunities. It gives description of the reaction of each group to a series of categories of facets of life that the author believes every culture deals with.
It gives some space to the influence of non-british minorities, though that is not it's main concern. The subject of the book is British folkways after all.
Perhaps the main fault is that it is a little to deterministic. That is an easy fault and many fall into the opposite errors of assuming people are monolithic members of a group and assuming them to be atomistic individuals. A better way to describe life is that we are all who we are but our nature and nurture is part of us and we are part of it. And a way to appreciate yourself and others is to appreciate the background people come from. And when I read this book I can appreciate what it means, not only to be an American but to be an Oregonian and a son of New England's kin.

Yawn. I just finished reading David Hackett Fischer's "Albion's Seed", and boy are my arms tired. You just try holding a 1,000-page paperback up in your bed without cracking a finger or the book's spine.

Was it worth it? Well, it was Fischer, one of my favorite authors, on the subject of American history, at which he is the best. The subject is the four cultures that made up the fabric of American society before the Revolution, and Fischer lays out his case in a clear, compelling way.

1. The Puritans - Misrepresented somewhat by modern historians but stern killjoys just the same, they settled the New England region and argued over such matters as whether it was moral to rescue a man trapped in a well on the Sabbath.

2. The Cavaliers - Wannabe aristocrats who congregated along the southern coast. Think "Gone With The Wind" without so much backtalk from the slaves. "...especially strong in Virginia, where it was reinforced by the values of an English culture that tended to be profoundly conservative in every sense - elitist, hierarchical, and strenuously hostile to social change."

3. The Quakers - Moral, high-toned, and as dry as those oats which bear their name. Believed in the inner light that led them to God, and hold up best to modern eyes despite a strenuous adversity to sex that led to the lowest birthrates and best furniture in the Americas. Founded Pennsylvania.

4. Backcountry "crackers" - See "Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel". Hard drinkers, borderline rapists, and Andrew Jackson. Cavaliers only tormented geese for laughs. The Crackers did the same to each other: "Bloodsports have existed in many cultures, but this was one of the few that made an entertainment of blinding, maiming, and castration."

Reading "Albion's Seed" made me feel more enlightened, yes, but it was hardly invigorating in the same way as Fischer's "Washington's Crossing" or "Paul Revere's Ride." It's a different kind of book, yes. You can't expect as many active verbs reading about sociology as you would with combat. But it feels more than a touch pat and stereotyped.

More problematically, it reads awfully slow, as Fischer painstakingly revisits the same subject areas with each of the four groups in turn. Long footnotes read like narrative, while narrative sections read like footnotes. Fischer walks each culture back to its English roots, drawing upon similarities that certainly resonate but hardly seem to matter. That Puritans wore the same clothes as their East Anglican forebears doesn't seem so important considering the lack of interest Puritans took in clothes in the first place.

Most frustrating is a final section where Fischer examines the impact of these four cultural groups on every U.S. Presidential election, right up to the one the year before the book was published in 1989. Fischer makes a point of saying all but two of the first 41 presidents had roots in one of the four groups, though that's less of a surprise given the dominance of English Protestants in American society than the fact Martin Van Buren slipped through. Fischer also seems to ignore the larger evidence that his four cultures have mutated quite out of recognition. Just try finding a Puritan in Boston today.

What's solid about the book is Fischer's way with a point, his ability to move quickly between subjects with his deft erudition and writerly flair, and most especially the enthusiasm he brings to dissecting the American WASP. But after a couple hundred pages the eyes glaze over, after 500 you are re-reading pages like a punch-drunk fighter in the 15th round. Save this for the shelf, but you'll enjoy it more in smaller doses on items of immediate interest.

How lucky I feel to have come across and finished one of those rare books that not only provides critical historical information, but also indelibly transforms the way I view the world.

The massive tome is about four discrete immigrant movements from Britain to the U.S. and their critical influence on modern regional cultures here. The migrations covered in the book start around 1630 with the East Anglian Puritans, and conclude with Ulster Scots-Irish and Anglo-Scots whose journey from impoverished regions of Britain into the backwoods areas of the Appalachians ended around 1775. His scholarship on the regional British cultures that defined the nucleus of each of the migrations is extremely impressive, and it gives him loads of ways to compare the original culture with its transplanted descendant in America. Incidentally, I never knew much about the history or geography of Britain up until I read this book, but after finishing it I found myself fascinated by just how much regional variation there was and was inspired to learn more.

One conclusion well-developed throughout Fischer's opus is that ethnic culture can remain strikingly uniform even after being transplanted to an entirely new geography and passing through many generations there (Kurds in Germany or Jews in ancient Babylon come to mind). He also argues that it was the values of the elites (mercantile and industrious in New England, humble and humanistic in New Jersey and east Pennsylvania, aristocratic and labor-averse in Virginia) that led to differences in the development of the economy.

Take the example of slavery, which was fundamental to antebellum southern states but less popular in the north. Fischer contends that slave ownership in southern colonies was more extensive due to the political hegemony of country squires (aka Cavaliers) originally from the Wessex region in SW England, particularly in the colony of Virgina. These privileged colonials believed that only landholding was an acceptable source of income for their sort, while physical labor and mercantilism were seen as contemptible, suitable only for those of low station. So while fertile lands farther north were being worked in small plots by yeoman farmer types with few or no slaves, the colony of Virginia became dominated by large plantations and manor houses that mirrored Saxon aristocracy. But since the region was semi-tropical and malarial, they chose African slaves over the white servants/serfs that were so essential to the manors of their ancestors. In other words, an imported British culture created the plantation system, not Virginian geography.

The final portion of the book deals with the pervasiveness of these original cultures throughout our national history. Fischer considers them as regionally dominant even now, despite the arrival of throngs of non-British immigrants over the centuries. Just like English has maintained itself as our national language even though less than 20% of our nation is of British descent, the prejudices of British immigrants 200-300 years ago still persist in a much more ethnically varied peoplescape.

There's much to learn AND to enjoy. Despite its 900+ pages Fischer is a lucid and focused writer, and he sprinkles the dry facts and figures with compelling anecdotes. This is essentially a polemical work, and he does jam a few squarish pegs into round holes (there are NYC Jewish gun-nuts, New Jersey Italian mobsters, and Alabama Scots-Irish peaceniks out there), but the overall evidence is so compelling that I feel this should be a standard text in high school American History courses. The belief structures of the four migrations (two really, since the Virginian/backcountry worldviews loosely align, as does that of the Puritans with the Quakers) are organized by Fischer around four distinct definitions of "freedom". Regional political conflicts are made understandable once the reader grasps these four separate outlooks.

The most provocative part of the book, in my opinion, is Fischer's scholarship and speculation about the basis of Borderer culture. "Borderers" came from southern Scotland and northern England and primarily settled and dominated the hillier, more forested regions in the Appalachians. They are often called Scots-Irish, but Fischer shows that most spoke English rather than Gaelic and had no immediate Irish blood or background. These were the people who even at that time might be called "crackers" or "rednecks" (terms that came from Britain). Centuries of cross-border warfare, raiding, and exploitative absentee lords left them with little belief in the ability of governments to promote justice and peace, and a sense that one must always be ready to defend oneself with violence. These values prepared them for the dangers of settling first the Appalachian frontier and then the Wild West, but left their descendants with a predilection toward violent conflict, as well as valuing physical prowess and robust sexuality over education and economic prosperity. We don't have any Hatfield-McCoy clan feuds in this day and age, as far as I know, but many of the fundamental belief structures of the ancient Borderers still exist through large portions of country. To my mind they bedevil us, even as they define our "average Joe" better than any other culture. People like Sen. Jim Webb and author Joe Bageant exemplify both the value and pitfalls of Borderer beliefs; they exemplify mental talent and fierce will but also carry the gloomy, suspicious, violence-prone outlook of their forebears.

Not only that, but Fischer's throw-aside supposition that long-term political instability tends to promote Borderer-style worldviews does a lot to help people from more cooperative areas understand aggressive clannish peoples, such as Somalis, Albanians, Tuaregs, and the Kurds of SE Turkey.

There's a large mental gap between someone raised in a home that trusts in guns over government and someone raised in a home with a focus on kindness, cooperation, and non-violent conflict resolution. The former sees the latter as childish and naive, while the latter sees the former as needlessly aggressive and paranoid. Both may be "correct" about the other, especially within the conditions of their region, but for any human it is difficult to imagine the effect of growing up in a culture with such fundamentally different assumptions. It's much easier to simply label one another as "wrong".

So I see this book as a Rosetta Stone, an incomplete primer into how to speak another person's internal language when that person has a different understanding of the nature of "freedom" in society as compared to you. It's straight-up BRILLIANT.

My daughter was very impressed by Albion's Seed when she read it as part of her undergrad studies in history. Several years after her graduation, I finally got around to reading it. I love scholarly books on history. Before Albion's Seed, I'd read Karen Armstrong's A History of God and Ronald Takaki's A Different Mirror. I didn't find Fischer's strength to be his writing (actually, there were several times when I became annoyed with him for his lack of footnotes, which would have especially worthwhile to explain some of the obscurities he passed over), but Fischer's strength is analysis--especially in tying the English colonists folkways to geographic behaviors and trends of today. Albion's Way is a wonderful seminal work on American culture. As long as it took me to finish this book (it was a long slog for me), it was incredibly worthwhile. Highly recommended!

but I am a student of history and I have found this book fascinating. I read it like a novel. It is easy to understand and is full of little known cultural information that makes it educational, as well. I do not fancy myself a scholar, by any stretch, but I do like a good read and this is one of the best non-fiction books I have read in a long time.

You can't fault DHF for omission of detail in this volume (the first of possibly many). This is the beginning of a history of social trends in America, based upon a thesis that there are four elemental sources of those trends: The Puritans of the Northeast, The Cavaliers of Virginia, the Quakers of Pennsylvania, and the Scots-Irish of the mountains. There will be much to quibble about whether American society can be reduced to these four elements. Unfortunately, it likely will take another 5,0000 pages to see. In an effort to reduce a vast amount of detail to an origanized set of information, DHF resorts to an annoying general term "way" to compare among the four groups philosophy, society, architecture, clothing, marital relations, even "gender" (nodding to the PC crowd). DHF thus attempts to do way too much and cover way too much detail. (In arguing for these four societies as the elements of modern American society is it really necessary to get into how each treated "gender" issues? He must have taught a gender studies class.) DHF clearly is a genius and full of information. But he is too interested in showing off his encyclopedia and that detracts from what otherwise is an interesting project.

Loaded with interesting detail. Good luck getting through it all, especially as further volumes come.

This is my favorite sort of book, serious academic research combined with a style of writing that is highly accessible and a pleasure to read. This book will serve as a brillant revelation to those unfamilar with the subject matter. But it is also extensive and detailed enough that even the most knowledgable will learn something new.

As a Southerner with British ancestors who arrived in America in both the 1600's and 1700's, I was especially interested to learn more about the distinctions between those who came from south and southwest England to settle tidewater Virginia between 1642-1675 and the northern English, Scotch and Scotch-Irish who came to the highlands and backwoods of the South from 1717-1775.

The Virginia cavaliers formed a small aristocracy that ruled over the more numerous poor to middling whites, many of whom originally came over as indentured servants. These English aristocrats often later became the plantation owners who achieved ever more wealth off the labor of black slaves. Meanwhile, the backcountry English, Scotch and Scotch-Irish continued, with some notable exceptions, to live in poverty while maintaining the violent but honor based social customs of their borderland ancestors. It was these people who formed the basis of the sterotypically Southern "redneck culture" that still exists.

Fischer also provides ample information about the differences between the Puritans who landed in Massachusetts and the Quakers who settled in Pennsylvania. Of course, the cultural makeup of the North became considerly more complicated following the vast migrations of immigrants that arrived from Ireland, Italy and many other countries in the 19th century. In contrast, the South received a much smaller number of later immigrants and its population continued to largely consist of people of either British or African heritage until recent decades.

But Fischer makes a convincing case that it was these original four, very different but still British, folkways that formed the basis of early American law, religion, and politics and that they continue to serve as important cultural influences to the present day. A terrific book recommended for all those interested in colonial American history.

This book is incredibly interesting and provides detailed and wonderful support for its complex analysis of the origins of many regional practices in the US. It's a joy to read and packed with fascinating information about our history. Anyone interested in American History should read it without delay

In this brilliant and masterful account the Anglo-Saxon immigration to America is illuminated through an examination of their origins. Even if most histories of the settling of America have distinguished between the Puritan culture of New England, the Quakers of Pennsylvania and the Southern gentry, few have ever done so in such a systematic and interesting way.
This study is a massive undertaking that examines the four major immigrant waves that broke on the shores of America in the 17th and 18th centuries. It examines foremost the immigration from East Anglia to New England, the immigration from the south of England to Virginia, the North midlands to the Delaware and the `borderlands' to the backcountry. This book shows that these were distinct patterns of immigration that were short lived and were particular phenomenons. Alongside the pattern and geographic extent of the immigration their were parallel differences in culture. These are illustrated through the examination of twenty four characteristics of each `folkway' of the immigrants. These vary from the types of sport they played to their superstition and their belief in `freedom' as well as their manner of speech and way they named the young.
This book may be heavy handed for some, slightly academic, but it is also a brilliant examination of the origins of American culture and the divisions and cultures inside America. It uses pictures and drawing as well as statistics, maps and diary entries to illustrate the point. One particularly interesting examination of that of architecture in the new world.
A brilliant book, that cannot be ignored if one wants to read about the origins of America and its peoples.

Seth J. Frantzman

At last I understand why there is so much more violence, us v. them, a much higher murder rate, and just plain orneriness among my fellow southerners.

David Hackett Fischer makes you conscious of cultural bents so ubiquitous that you may not have grasped them before, even as they've grasped you.

His writing is careful and persuasive. Organized in the manner of folklore studies, in sections by category of behavior and custom, the book can serve as a reference book--yet one ends up reading long passages, spellbound by recognition.

Campaign strategists, and other voters, should take note of the section at the back reviewing the influence of cultural roots on US presidential campaigns.

No doubt about it. This was a great book! The research is impressive and almost entirely rooted in primary and archival sources. The thesis was clear, ambitious, and bold. I have read few other books from which I have learned so much.

I give this book high marks just for its very ambition! A must read for those interested in early US history. This is the longest book I have ever read without a narrative!

I give this book high marks just for its very ambition! A must read for those interested in early US history. This is the longest book I have ever read without a narrative!

This is a "must have" book for anyone researching their family history from Colonial America to this day. This work creates an understanding of the lives of our ancestors and their neighbors.
The lasting influence of the customs brought to America are still evident in today's society and culture.
Well written and a very easy read. Good source material for futher study. Many will find themselves going back and re-reading passages of special interest to them.
Only "negative" reply is that the book wasn't longer as it was so very interesting and even fun.
Thank you Mr. Fischer for bringing so much history to our doorstep.

This is a "must have" book for anyone researching their family history from Colonial America to this day. This work creates an understanding of the lives of our ancestors and their neighbors.
The lasting influence of the customs brought to America are still evident in today's society and culture.
Well written and a very easy read. Good source material for futher study. Many will find themselves going back and re-reading passages of special interest to them.
Only "negative" reply is that the book wasn't longer as it was so very interesting and even fun.
Thank you Mr. Fischer for bringing so much history to our doorstep.

This book is a massive compendium on pretty much everything you could ever want to know (and more!) on Puritans, Quakers, Virginia cavaliers and so on. Want to know how the Quakers made Philadelphia Cream Cheese? It's in here. Or what Newark, NJ's Puritan name was? That's in here too. Fischer's thesis, that these four British folkways, are the major contributors to current American culture in the regions is a little forced at times and he ignores all the other cultures in the region (like the Germans or the Scots-Irish Presbyterians) but this book is still very helpful for anyone seeking to understand colonial culture. When he tries to equate it with modern culture, he goes a little weak. Hence, he only gets four stars.

Great book for those who want to better understand the origins of American culture.

Great book for those who want to better understand the origins of American culture.

First, let it be said that I am not American, but European (Belgian in fact) and that I never lived in the US, but visited places like Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York and California and already read many books on American history before this one. But " Albion's seed" was a revelation to me. This book:

1) Is fascinating in all that it teaches us about 17th and 18th century Anglo-American "popular culture", i.e. how people thought and led their spiritual, social and material lives, as well as the roots of this culture in the Middle Ages.
2) Answered all of my basic questions on the continuity between America and its English past.
3) Throws a very interesting light on American history and culture up to this day.

The argument developed in "Albion's seed" is that American culture is based on four strands of English regional cultures that pursued a life of their own once they found a home across the Atlantic.
It is also that their interactions explain most major events of US history since the revolution. These cultures are still very much alive in the United States, according to David Hackett Fischer, although they did not remain static and were nourished by the subsequent waves of migration from Europe and elsewhere.
The coexistence of those four cultures explains the main regional differences in the US including voting patterns in presidential elections.
The developments from 1776 to 1989 (publication date of "Albion's seed") are the subject of the last 100 pages of this huge book. But the first 800 are devoted to present one by one, these very important " four British folkways" in all their aspects, with an immense wealth of detail.

The main themes developed by the author are as follows:

a) First of all the four migrations were regional both in their origin and destinations:
1) East Anglia to Massachusetts
2) Southwest England to Virginia
3) The English North Midlands to Pennsylvania
4) The English-Scottish border area to the Appalachia and the Southern Backcountry

b) The movements happened at different times. The first two occurred before 1688 and the last two after that date, up to the 1770's. They were each the product of periods of economic, political or religious troubles in England that convinced their "victims" to leave the Mother Country in large numbers and seek a better life elsewhere.

c) Their religion and social origins were also very distinct.
A propertied Puritan middle class from East Anglia settled in Massachusetts to escape the poor and the Nobility. Anglican second sons of the Gentry went from Southwest England to Virginia and recreated large estates to be worked by a proletarian underclass (who, because of the climate, they imported mostly from Africa). Northern Quaker Artisans and Shopkeepers tried to create an egalitarian utopia in Pennsylvania and Delaware. The poor border farmers, who moved to the Backcountry, professed an evangelical religion and were simply looking to escape starvation.

d) As a consequence of a, b and c, these people carried with them whole sets of very distinct social values that reflected their origins. They spoke different dialects of English and had their own views on all aspects of life, i.e. local political institutions, ideals of liberty, hierarchy, work, marriage, gender relations, child naming and raising, ways to structure and exploit the land, build houses, cook, clothe, practice sports, etc.
David Hackett Fischer has managed to find compelling historical evidence that all these values were all very characteristic of immigrants' regions of origins.
And today, now that, according to US census statistics, less than 20% of Americans have any English ancestry at all, it is precisely those social values that are the more lasting legacy of the first migrants to America. They make Americans in a very real sense "children" of 17th and 18th century England.

I was fascinated from cover to cover. The details of everyday life just draw you in. It's a shame that no one has done the same for the early Dutch, German, etc. settlers as well.

As a historian I should have plunged into Fischer's masterpiece years ago. Now that I have, I invite others to join in -The Water is fine! Anyone who professes to know about, or is trying to understand the American colonal experience needs this source.

Albion's Seed by Brandeis University History Professor David Hackett Fischer is the history of the four main regional migrations from Britain to North America in the 17th and 18th centuries. Professor Fischer examines each of these four migrations in great detail, describing the origin, motivations, religion, timing, and numerous cultural attitudes or folkways for dealing with everyday life, including birth, child rearing, marriage, age, death, order, speech, architecture, dress, food, wealth, and time, to cite only a few. He devotes special attention to the different concepts of liberty and freedom held by each of these four British cultural groups.

The first major wave consisted predominantly of the Puritans from East Anglia who settled in New England between 1629 and 1640, the years immediately preceding the English Civil War in which Oliver Cromwell and the Puritan army defeated and beheaded King Charles I.

The second wave consisted of defeated (or soon to be defeated) supporters of the king and the Established (Anglican) Church of England, primarily from the south and west of England, who settled in the Chesapeake Bay regions of Virginia and Maryland between 1642 and 1675.

The third wave was the migration of Quakers from the English midlands (and their religious kin from various German sects) who settled in the Delaware Valley (southeast Pennsylvania, west New Jersey, north Delaware) between 1675 and 1615.

Finally, the "Scotch-Irish", referring collectively to immigrants from the north of England, lowland Scotland, and Ulster, settled the Appalachian backcountry from Pennsylvania southwest through Virginia, the Carolinas, and into Tennessee and Kentucky from 1717 to 1775. Less homogenous in religion than the prior waves, the Scotch-Irish were a mixture of Presbyterians, the dominant group, and Anglicans, a significant minority.

Each of these four folk established an amazingly enduring culture in their region, a culture that successfully incorporated later immigrants from other origins who shared little or none of the dominant folkway that had become established in their new home. Their contrasting concepts of liberty are among the most visible today. The Puritan concept of liberty, "ordered liberty" in Fischer's terminology, focused on the "freedom" to conform to the policies of the Puritan Church and local government. The Virginia concept of liberty, "hegemonic liberty", was hierarchical in nature, ranging from the great freedom of those in positions of power and wealth down to the total lack of freedom accorded to slaves. The Quaker concept of liberty, "reciprocal liberty", focused on the aspects of freedom that were held equally by all people as opposed to the unequal and asymmetric freedoms of the Puritans and Virginians. Finally, the Scotch-Irish concept of liberty, "natural liberty", focused on the natural rights of the individual and his freedom from government coercion.

Albion's Seed was a delight to read, filled with quaint, instructive, and amusing anecdotes that reflect folkways that endure today. It should be equally appealing to those interested in defining and contrasting the cultural histories of different groups, the process and cultural impact of human migrations, the foundations of the Anglo-American world, and the different roots of the concept of liberty.

In, Albion's Seed, author David Hackett Fischer traces the origins of four major immigrations to America and shows how cultural norms were transplanted from various parts of England to America. He theorizes the folkways they brought with them explain how and why different regions in America developed as they did. He believes they are still having an impact today.

The first migration was the Puritans. They emanated from Southeast England from 1629 until 1641 and settled in the Massachusetts area. Strict, pious, and extremely frugal, they fled religious persecution in England only to deny religious liberty to all but their own in New England.

The second were the, "Distressed Cavaliers and Indentured Servants," who left Southwest England between 1642 and 1675 settling principally in Virginia. The ruling elite, primarily the second sons of noblemen, brought with them the sense of pride and honor of which so many Southern legends are told.

Third were the, "Friends," commonly called, "Quakers," who settled in Pennsylvania from 1675-1725. Emanating from the northern midlands, they were tolerant, hard working men and women who eschewed violence as they followed the, "inner light," they believed indwelled all mankind.

Last were the Scotch-Irish who settled what was called, "the back country." Coming from the northern borderlands of England, these people brought a fierce pride and a warrior ethic that translated into many blood feuds in what is now Appalachia.

Fischer theorizes this pattern of regionalism persists to this day. He cites as evidence the fact that political candidates must seek to appeal to more than one region if they hope to be elected nationally. George Bush's and Jimmy Carter's elections are two examples.

This work first came to my attention when it was used as a reference in upper level history classes. While it is long, (898 pages plus the index with numerous footnotes), it is a valuable asset to anyone seriously studying how and why things have developed as they have in this nation. I strongly recommend it to any serious student of the history or sociology of this nation. Five Stars!!

Turning the "Turner thesis" somewhat on its ear this work is every bit as groundbreaking as it is hyped to be. I have seached and struggled for years to explain regional differences with no satisfaction until now. Four separate and distinct sections of the east were settled at different times by four very distinct British "tribes" which adapted uniquely to their new environments. The meddling materialist yankee, the bland egalitarian Quaker, the dignified cavalier and the untamed rebel are dissected and evaluated from every significant social angle. This is social history at its best.
And why not. Fischer even has the stones to write a book entitled "Historians' Fallacies" which I am presently reading. In it he sets out to set other historians straight on the various wrong routes they have taken. Perhaps it will explain the gaping hole in his Albion's Seed. I specifically refer to the total and complete absence of New England's role in the slave trade, and how it was developed and harnessed as the capital engine for the regions' industrial revolution. I continue to be astounded at the amnesia, blind eye or delusion that plagues even our "best" historians on the institution which, you guessed it, Fischer pretty much blamed on the Virginians.
OK, so nobody is perfect. Realize the book has this one enormous flaw and read it anyway.

A Rosetta stone: fits the definition of genius, in that it makes the obscure obvious. Writing Albion's Seed must have been a serious strain, which shows in a few places. Yet the book is a masterpiece. Another reviewer wrote, it's like reading Darwin's Origin of Species or Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel. It's gratifying to see so many positive reviews of Albion's Seed on Amazon, because it is a non-PC history that some people might take offense at. The book deftly steers around the shrill excess of multicultural history. It also represents a serious and largely successful attack on the 20th-century revisionist-materialist theories of history that have done so much damage to American historiography and the teaching of history. On a theoretical level, these are Fischer's real target, and he takes them down beautifully. His explanation of the rise of slavery in the tidewater Chesapeake should be drilled into every history graduate student, since there's so much nonsense that's been written on the subject. (The tidewater South was the Royalist-cavalier utopia of the disinherited younger sons. The South created slavery, not vice-versa, and its creation was a conscious, deliberate act, not a result of imaginary "blind economic forces.") Although Fischer is not a conservative, the book's message is the essential conservative truth: culture is (usually) more important than politics, custom more important than law, and society more important than government.

Unless you understand Fischer's larger point about pluralism and competing notions of freedom and the public good, you won't understand America. If you think it's irrelevant today, just overlay a national map of the "four culture" derivatives with the "red-blue" electoral maps the media incessantly chatters about, with zero understanding. Fischer's gift for making vividly concrete what would otherwise be deadly abstractions serves the reader especially well here. The Puritan conception (the origin of modern liberalism) is ordered freedom, with everyone smothered in lots of rules. (After the twisting of the Puritan legacy by the likes of Mencken and Arthur Miller, Fischer's corrective presentation of what they were about is alone worth the price of the book.) The Quaker conception is libertarian: reciprocal, mutual forebearance. And so on.

Another sign of genius: the implications of the book, which could easily serve as a basis for decades of graduate theses. Many Fischer does not mention or only mentions in passing. One is the role of non-Anglo minorities operating within the four-cultures template, the most important being black Americans. Mixed Anglo and African by ancestry, they are nonetheless completely American in culture and religion. Forced by slavery and racism to operate at the margins of society, they absorbed and re-created for themselves the two Southern cultures of tidewater and upland. Liberated from slavery by the two middle class Northern cultures of Puritan and Quaker, they nevertheless remain culturally more like white Southerners than anyone else. Read Kevin Phillips' very interesting The Cousins' Wars: The Triumph of Anglo-America for more about this.

Another is the existence of smaller "niche" cultures that Fischer barely mentions, the most important being the niche centered around New Amsterdam/New York. This area was already a polyglot standout in colonial times, dominated by a mix of Dutch Calvinists, French Huguenots, and Anglos. The later emergence of New York as a non-Anglo immigrant mecca cannot be understood apart from its earlier colonial history. Then there are the two colonial Catholic niches of Louisiana and Maryland, more relaxed versions of Southern tidewater culture.

The most recognized footprint left by Albion's Seed is Fischer's superb exposition of the borders culture, often misunderstood and confused with the culture of poor whites of the Southern lowlands. He does a superb job of explaining it as a result of the insecurity and anarchy of northern Britain and Ireland in early modern times. (This culture includes, but is not limited to, the Scots-Irish Presbyterians, the fiercest border type. Other types include the Anglo-Scottish and Anglo-Irish.) In such cultures, a man's measure is not what he owns, but how well he can fight. A leader's measure is his charisma and the protection he provides to his followers, both blood relatives and adoptees. Honor and shame are everything. See, e.g., Rob Roy. Since there was no effective government, each man, or more precisely, each clan, was its own law. Contrary to a common misconception, this has nothing to do with slavery - a silly idea, since few border people in America owned slaves. Their relations with the Indians are more interesting, since many Indian peoples were similar - warlike, insecure, taciturn, and stoic - women subordinated and doing all the work, while the men did the fighting and lacked a strong work ethic. The type of leader produced by this culture - the classic examples are Andrew Jackson and James Polk - is populist, but only in the sense that his followers acclaim him, not vice versa.

The White House is currently inhabited by a cartoon version of this very culture. The dried-out, eldest son of wealthy Connecticut Yankees re-invents his sorry ass as a populist border chieftan - pathetic. If Andrew Jackson or Lyndon Johnson were alive today, they'd be spinning in their graves :) Another interesting study would be how the borders culture moved into conflict with the Southern tidewater culture in the 19th century, mainly because of slavery (see: Cold Mountain), but then into alliance in the twentieth, because of a common opposition to growing government, albeit for different reasons.

Fischer only touches on the later co-evolution and hybridization of these four seed cultures. He does discuss Lincoln at some length as a hybrid of Puritan and Quaker, and Reagan as a hybrid of border-Irish and English. He also touches briefly on the later branching of the borders culture into two streams, the rugged individualism of the Far West and the cattle-ranching culture of the Southwest, under Spanish influence. Then there is the culture of the upper Mid West and the Northwest strongly influenced by seeding from New England and the Quakers. (There is a Scandinavian influence as well, but partly and surprisingly through the Quakers themselves.) The Left Coast would be horrified to discover the Puritans among its spiritual ancestors. But so it is.

To close: Fischer's admiration for the Quakers. After you absorb this culture and its Midlands English dialect, it will be obvious which of the four seed cultures dominates middle class America today: commerce, philanthropy, and forms of local government; attitudes towards literacy, education, and children; relations between the sexes; religious pluralism; and the standard "middle" (mid-Atlantic) American speech. Much that is wrongly attributed to the Puritans is really due to the Quakers and their remarkable leader, William Penn. The Quakers' reciprocal liberty is just an application of the Golden Rule, yet it is sad that what many people want for themselves they often fail to extend to others. The Quaker culture is the one that a modern American could be transported back into with the least disorientation. And yet Penn and his Quakers are given too little attention in American history books, which tend to be consumed with Puritans and Virginians and their quarrel over slavery - Roundheads and Cavaliers again. That's a pity.

NOTE: Go to C-SPAN's BookTV Web site and find the Fischer interview. Worth your three hours.

A Rosetta stone: fits the definition of genius, in that it makes the obscure obvious. Writing Albion's Seed must have been a serious strain, which shows in a few places. Yet the book is a masterpiece. As someone else wrote, it's like reading Darwin's Origin of Species or Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel. It's gratifying to see so many positive reviews of Albion's Seed on Amazon, because it is a non-PC history that some people might take offense at. The book deftly steers around the shrill excess of multicultural history. It also represents a serious and largely successful attack on the 20th-century revisionist-materialist theories of history that have done so much damage to American historiography and the teaching of history. On a theoretical level, these are Fischer's real target, and he takes them down beautifully. His explanation of the rise of slavery in the tidewater Chesapeake should be drilled into every history graduate student, since there's so much nonsense that's been written on the subject. (The tidewater South was the Royalist-cavalier utopia of the disinherited younger sons. The South created slavery, not vice-versa, and its creation was a conscious, deliberate act, not a result of imaginary "blind economic forces.") Although Fischer is not a conservative, the book's message is the essential conservative truth about society: culture is (usually) more important than politics.

Unless you understand Fischer's larger point about pluralism and competing notions of freedom and the public good, you won't understand America. If you think it's irrelevant today, just overlay a national map of the "four culture" derivatives with the "red-blue" electoral maps the media incessantly chatters about, with zero understanding. Fischer's gift for making vividly concrete what would otherwise be deadly abstractions serves the reader especially well here. The Puritan conception (the origin of modern liberalism) is ordered freedom, with everyone smothered in lots of rules. (After the twisting of the Puritan legacy by the likes of Mencken and Arthur Miller, Fischer's corrective presentation of what they were about is alone worth the price of the book.) The Quaker conception is reciprocal, mutual forebearance - libertarian. And so on.

Another sign of genius: the implications of the book, which could easily serve as a basis for decades to come of graduate theses. Many Fischer does not mention or only mentions in passing. One is the role of non-Anglo minorities operating within the four-cultures template, the most important being black Americans. Mixed Anglo and African by ancestry, they are nonetheless completely American in culture and religion. Forced by slavery and racism to operate at the margins of society, they absorbed and re-created for themselves the two Southern cultures of tidewater and upland. Liberated from slavery by the two middle class Northern cultures of Puritan and Quaker, they nevertheless remain culturally more like white Southerners than anyone else. Read Kevin Phillips' very interesting The Cousins' Wars: The Triumph of Anglo-America for more about this.

Another is the existence of smaller "niche" cultures that Fischer barely mentions, the most important being the niche centered around New Amsterdam/New York. This area was already a polyglot standout in colonial times, dominated by a mix of Dutch Calvinists, French Huguenots, and Anglos. The later emergence of New York as a non-Anglo immigrant mecca cannot be understood apart from its earlier colonial history. Then there are the two colonial Catholic niches of Louisiana and Maryland, more relaxed versions of Southern tidewater culture.

I've lived all over the US, in all four culture zones, and what Fischer outlines is very real. I am descended on my father's side from the Anglo-Scottish borders. Here's an often misunderstood culture - carefully distinguish it from the culture of poor whites of the Southern lowlands. Fischer does a superb job of explaining it as a result of the insecurity and anarchy of northern Britain and Ireland in early modern times. (This culture includes, but is not limited to, the Scots-Irish Presbyterians, the fiercest border type. Other types include the Anglo-Scottish and Anglo-Irish.) In such cultures, a man's measure is not what he owns, but how well he can fight. A leader's measure is his charisma and the protection he provides to his followers, both blood relatives and adoptees. Honor and shame are everything. See, e.g., Rob Roy. Since there was no effective government, each man, or more precisely, each clan, was its own law. Contrary to a common misconception, this has nothing to do with slavery - a silly idea, since few border people in America ever owned slaves. Their relations with the Indians are more interesting, since many Indian nations were themselves similar - warlike, insecure, taciturn, and stoic - women very subordinated and doing all the work, while the men did the fighting and lacked a strong work ethic. The type of leader produced by this culture - the classic examples are Andrew Jackson and James Polk - is populist, but only in the sense that his followers acclaim him, not vice versa.

The White House is currently inhabited by a cartoon version of this very culture. The dried-out, eldest son of wealthy Connecticut Yankees re-invents his sorry ass as a populist border chieftan - pathetic. If Andrew Jackson or Lyndon Johnson were alive today, they'd be spinning in their graves :) Another interesting study would be how the borders culture moved into conflict with the Southern tidewater culture in the 19th century, mainly because of slavery, but then into alliance in the 20th century, because of a common opposition to growing government, albeit for different reasons.

Fischer only touches on the later co-evolution and hybridization of these four seed cultures. He does discuss Lincoln at some length as a hybrid of Puritan and Quaker, and Reagan as a hybrid of border-Irish and English. He also touches briefly on the later branching of the borders culture into two streams, the rugged individualism of the Far West and the cattle-ranching culture of the Southwest, under Spanish influence. Finally, the culture of the upper Mid West and the Northwest is strongly influenced by seeding from New England and the Quakers. (There is a Scandinavian influence as well, but partly and surprisingly through the Quakers themselves - see Fischer.) The Left Coast would be horrified to discover the Puritans among its spiritual ancestors. But so it is.

To close: Fischer's admiration for the Quakers. After you absorb this culture and its Midlands English dialect, it will be obvious which of the four seed cultures dominates middle class America today: commerce, philanthropy, and forms of local government; attitudes towards literacy, education, and children; relations between the sexes; religious pluralism; and the standard "middle" (mid-Atlantic) American speech. Much that is wrongly attributed to the Puritans is really due to the Quakers. William Penn was a remarkable man, and it's not an accident that his 17th-century Midlands prose is easy for a modern American to read. The Quakers' reciprocal liberty is just an application of the Golden Rule, yet it is sad that what many people want for themselves they often fail to extend to others. The Quaker culture is the one that a modern American could be transported back into with the least disorientation. And yet Penn and his Quakers are given too little attention in American history books, which tend to be consumed with Puritans and Virginians and their quarrel over slavery - Roundheads and Cavaliers again. That's a pity.

NOTE: Go to C-SPAN's BookTV Web site and find the Fischer interview. Worth your three hours.

I was drawn to read this book by Professor Fischer's recent appearance on C-Span, and was not disappointed. It may be true as other reviewers have noted that he sometimes seems to stretch the facts to fit his theory, but I was amazed at how often as I read I said to myself, "Yes, I knew that, but now I understand why." Fischer's thesis can explain why the Democrats could elect a Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton but not a John Kerry, and how the red and blue states got that way. There is always a danger in stereotyping, of course, but it helps if you know where the stereotypes come from and how much of them are valid--Fischer's book is a great help in knowing ourselves.

Fischer's attempts to analyze the influence of regional British folkways in colonial America holds much promise. Sadly, he uses, however, a simplistic and often contradictory interpretive methodology.
Much of his information on such vague topics as "freedom" ways is anctedotal. His maps of regional origins for colonists tend to contradict his findings. A case in point is his analysis of the so-called Cavalier society of Virginia. His map indicates a substantial Welsh component to the servant population. The Welsh, like the Irish and the Scots, are either ignored altogether or given cursory attention in the creation of a Tuckahoe [i.e. Virginian] identity. Admittedly, the English did dominate Virginia numerically, the contributions of the latter, however, particularly in the Northern Neck cannot be underestimated. The contribution of Northern English, the primary creators of Fischer's fourth folkway, to the Chesapeake population is also an issue that raises problems for Fischer's analysis as does the contribution of West Countrymen to New England.
In his analysis of backcountry folkways he relies heavily on McWhiney's "Cracker Culture," a particularly problematic book, and McDonald and McWhiney's Celtic theory of Southern culture and the so-called Highland zone theory of British history. Fischer ignores the contribution of low country white immigrants from Virginia and Pennsylvania Quakers to the the formation of Appalachian culture, not to mention the Germans. The Germans, in particular, may have contributed to the pastoral agricultural traditions of the Southern Appalachians. Finally, the role of African Americans in the formation of Southern society is never adequately explored.
Also, some of the information he employs in presenting his case about the so-called North Britons in the Backcountry is drawn from William Byrd's History of the Dividing Line. The individuals encountered by Byrd were infact drawn from Culture Number 2. Because Byrd's expedition through the Southside of Virginia pre-dated the later arrival of Scots-Irish and other PA settlers in places like Lunenberg or Mecklenberg county.
As a native of the Shenandoah Valley, and a product of cultures number 2 and 4, I personally found this premise fascinating. The English, because of their numbers and historical position in American culture, tend to be ignored as an ethnic group. So in this regard, Fischer's premise is sound, in the exploration of the ethno-cultural contributions of English folk cultures to American regionalism. Fischer's introductory descriptions of the environments encountered by the colonists is another example of promise not kept, when he downplays the role of creolization and adaptation to the new environment. But the broad generalizations Fischer employs detracts from the final product.
I was pleasantly surprised by Fischer's second book "Bound Away." For individuals interested in the process, in particular, by which Englishmen became Virginians I would recommend:
1. Alan Kulikoff's article "The Colonial Chesapeake: Seedbed of Antebellum Southern Culture?'"Journal of Southern History, 45 (1979), 513-40.
2. Alan Kulikoff's "Tobacco and Slaves" (1986).
3. Terry Jordon-Bychkov, "The Upland South: The Making of an American Folk Region and Landscape." I have problems with Jordan-Bychkov's Finnish contribution theory and the number of Upper Souther "mestizos" that the author posits. But the author maintains the traditional 3-part theory of John C. Campbell about Appalachian origins, namely: "Scots-Irish," Virginian/Carolinian [i.e. lowland whites] and Swiss-German.
4.Elizabeth A. Perkins and John Dabney Shane, "Border Life: Experience and Memory in the Revolutionary Ohio Valley" A fascinating account of one of the first frontiers where individuals from the different "regions," in particular cultures number 2 and 4 came together.

On the positive side I would recommend his analysis of child-rearing techniques. In particular his analysis of the so-called "will bending" as practised in Virginia. According to Fischer Virginians raised their sons to be both independent, assertive males, yet at the same time kept them economically and emotionally bound to their fathers. In this world daughters were taught to be submissive. Yet, as Fischer shows, Virginian daughters did not always conform to this social paradigm and with the sons this created an emotional paradox that had strong social implications. In this one example it is possible to see the way in which Fischer weaves together Anthropological and Historical methodology seamlessly.

In general the book is very readable and Fischer's arguments, whether you agree with them or not, are not hard to discern.

David Hackett Fisher's Albion's Seed is an enlightening and fascinating book.

The reason it had such a powerful impact on me is because I was expecting a history book and it's not - it's an anthropology book. It is a study of nature - human nature as it arose in England and settled in America 400 years ago.

At its core Albion's Seed accepts the conservative belief that what people ARE is more important to history than what people DO. It is surprising to see this book coming from a sociology professor at Brandeis University - a place generally racially hostile to indigenous European peoples such as the English.

Albion's Seed is about the English settlers of America in the 1600s and 1700s. And it contains not a trace of hostility or condescension towards them. In the case of the Quakers of the Delaware Valley it is openly admiring - so much so that Fisher almost loses his academic detachment.

In addition to the Quakers who emigrated from the North Midlands fleeing persecution, it studies the Puritan Congregationalists who settled New England from East England seeking to create a perfect society; the royalist elites from the South of England who left because of population pressure and formed Virginian society; and the war-like, clan-like families from the English/Scottish border fleeing famine and persecution who settled the American backcountries.

Fisher brilliantly and deeply describes the varied folkways of these people and (especially in the case of the English/Scotch border folk) how those ways arose from the history of their homeland. In America they were free from the pressures of England - but they brought their nature and culture with them and carved out unique, successful, and cultured societies in the new world.

This book is deeply researched and thoroughly footnoted. It is both scholarly and easy to read. I highly recommend it to anyone who believes that history changes - but people do not.

Fischer's attempts to analyze the influence of regional British folkways in colonial America holds much promise. Sadly, he uses, however, a simplistic and often contradictory interpretive methodology.
Much of his information on such vague topics as "freedom" ways is anctedotal. His maps of regional origins for colonists tend to contradict his findings. A case in point is his analysis of the so-called Cavalier society of Virginia. His map indicates a substantial Welsh component to the servant population. The Welsh, like the Irish and the Scots, are either ignored altogether or given cursory attention in the creation of a Tuckahoe [i.e. Virginian] identity. Admittedly, the English did dominate Virginia numerically, the contributions of the latter, however, particularly in the Northern Neck cannot be underestimated. The contribution of Northern English, the primary creators of Fischer's fourth folkway, to the Chesapeake population is also an issue that raises problems for Fischer's analysis as does the contribution of West Countrymen to New England.
In his analysis of backcountry folkways he relies heavily on McWhiney's "Cracker Culture," a particularly problematic book, and McDonald and McWhiney's Celtic theory of Southern culture and the so-called Highland zone theory of British history. Fischer ignores the contribution of low country white immigrants from Virginia and Pennsylvania Quakers to the the formation of Appalachian culture, not to mention the Germans. The Germans, in particular, may have contributed to the pastoral agricultural traditions of the Southern Appalachians. Finally, the role of African Americans in the formation of Southern society is never adequately explored.
As a native of the Shenandoah Valley, and a product of cultures number 2 and 4, I personally found this premise fascinating. The English, because of their numbers and historical position in American culture, tend to be ignored as an ethnic group. So in this regard, Fischer's premise is sound, in the exploration of the ethno-cultural contributions of English folk cultures to American regionalism. Fischer's introductory descriptions of the environments encountered by the colonists is another example of promise not kept, when he downplays the role of creolization and adaptation to the new environment. But the broad generalizations Fischer employs detracts from the final product.
I was pleasantly surprised by Fischer's second book "Bound Away." For individuals interested in the process, in particular, by which Englishmen became Virginians I would recommend:
1. Alan Kulikoff's article "The Colonial Chesapeake: Seedbed of Antebellum Southern Culture?'"Journal of Southern History, 45 (1979), 513-40.
2. Alan Kulikoff's "Tobacco and Slaves" (1986).
3. Terry Jordon-Bychkov, "The Upland South: The Making of an American Folk Region and Landscape." I have problems with Jordan-Bychkov's Finnish contribution theory and the number of Upper Souther "mestizos" that the author posits. But the author maintains the traditional 3-part Campbell theory of Appalachian origins, namely: "Scots-Irish," Virginian/Carolinian [i.e. lowland whites] and Swiss-German.
4.Elizabeth A. Perkins and John Dabney Shane, "Border Life: Experience and Memory in the Revolutionary Ohio Valley" A fascinating account of one of the first frontiers where individuals from the different "regions," in particular culture number 2 and 4 came together.

Fischer's treatment of the four distinct British folkways in America goes a long way to explaining regional vatiation in the US. However, I'm not sure that I agree with his conclusion that social scientists need to develop better explanations of stability in social norms. Social scientists generally see norms as stable and passed on by childhood socialization. The challenge is to explain cultural change and why social institutions transform, as in this case, so that the four cultures melded to form one common civic culture. Fischer's second volume addressing this change is much anticipated.

What can I say? It's tough reviewing a monumental piece of historical study like this. I consider it the absolute essential reader for anyone intersted in the America and its foundation. Never dull.

Fischer uses the sociological concept of "Folkways" to organize his exploration of the cultures which created the United States. Folkways are the "ways of life" that combine to create a distinct cultures. In turn, those distinct cultures combine to create our society.

Fischer identifies four relevant folkways: the Puritans of New England, the Cavaliers of Virginia, the Quakers of the Delaware Valley and the Borderers (or Scotch Irish) of the back country.

The most extraordinary part of this long, long book was the manner in which Fischer was able to unpack the regional cultures of the British Isles. As Fischer himself remarks, British historians and social scientists have devoted negligible time and attention to regional culture (as supposed to strictly "local" culture, which is often covered in Britain).

Once Fischer links up the regions in England with their counter parts in America, the once obscure has become obvious. This, I believe, is one of the hallmarks of excellent scholarship.

It's almost impossible to critize anything about this book until the last hundred pages, when Fischer blithely asserts that all events for the past three hundred years are eminently explainable in terms of the four folkways of this book.

I was suprised to see him reach so far, especially since this is "volume 1" of a "proposed five volume set". Since this book was published fifteen years ago, I guess we'll have to be patient while we wait for, "The Ebony Tree: African Folkways in America"
, volume two of the set.

Still, this book was near revelatory in both method and analysis.

For those who want to know more about the how the United States developed its cultural, social, and political identity this is the book for you. This in turn leads me focus my recommendation to the two types of readers who will find this book most helpful/useful.

The two types of readers who will benefit/enjoy this book most are those who have a strong interest in the American Social Systems (Sociology/History Majors), followed by those interested how the those early societial values continue to influence American Politics/Values to this day (Politial Science/Religious Studies/Antropology Majors).

The information within this book is so important and yet alas not seen as important by the multitude as other simplistic books such as Laura Ingrams "shut up and sing" or Michael Moore's epic doorstop "dude where's my country"

Freedom's liberty tree is planted in the fertile soil of the many cultural groups who have made our land a "melting pot." In
Fishcer's brilliant work he traces with fascinating detail the transposition from Britain to the American colonies the folkways that have made each region distinctive. The four folk cultures he delineates are:
1. New England-the Puritans came from the East Anglia region of
England. They were pious, hardworking and intoxicated with theology and ordedr.
2. The Middle Colonies-the Quaker influence is profound in this region of Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey. William Penn and the followers of the Quaker founder George Fox were the most liberal minded of the quartet of folk cultures chronicled by Fischer. The Quaker culture was influential in the southwest and midland counties of Britain. Their belief in religous toleration has added much to American democracy.
3. The tidewider and coastal south was settled by southern English natives who were Cavaliers supportive of the Stuart
dynasty. This society was hierarchial and based on honor and
fueled by chattel slavery.
4. the backcountry region was settled by Englishmen from the northern border region of England, Scotland and Ulster Scotch-Irish. Exemplified by such paragons of this violent and emotional culture were men like Andrew Jackson and James Knox Polk. Composed of Hoosiers and Rednecks, Crackers and doughty pioneers this society believed in individual freedom.
The almost 1000 page book is filled with illustrations, population data and election results of Presidential elections which reflect how political choices are reflected in the four major mass migrations made to America by Britishers.
While only about 20% of our nearly 300 million population has direct ties to British ancestry the British influence in America is profound-indeed formative in the formation of American society as it exists today with all its strengths and weaknesses.
This book is essential reading if one wants to understand many aspects of American history and life.
Hackett-Fisher is an esteemed historian and with this work is legacy is assured in American histography for generations to come.
Excellent!

If you stand too close to anything, it disappears. This may or may not be good physics, but it is great social theory. Case in point: the WASP, the white Anglo-Saxon protest so famed in song and story. It is David Hackett Fischer's peculiar virtue to point out that there never was such a thing. Or more strictly - that the early settlers who came from the British Isles fall into not one, but at least four disparate categories. New England Puritans were not Pennsylvania Quakers who were not Midatlantic Catholics (sic). Take them all together and they were none of them the least way like the Scotch-Irish who came later and swept back into the hills, whence they spilled forth over half a Century or more to dominate our political life..

You can see it on the map, of which Fischer offers several. They came from different places. They brought different alliances and their own particular betrayals, and a range of subliminal traditions that distinguish them one from another.

One good example is relations between the sexes. The Puritans were a "patriarchic" people by 20th Century standards, but they believed that God spoke to men and women alike - so at least you had to listen to what you say. The Scotch Irish, far more close to nomadic in their way, would have none of it. Fischer shows how a Scotch-Irish wedding, however merry an occasion for all concerned, is stylistically a ritualized rape.

Fischer has hundreds of pages of this stuff, but it is perhaps the politics that is the most interesting. It wasn't the descendants of John Adams who dominated our public life (his great-grandchild, Henry Adams, wrote the great American parable of the superfluous man). It was the likes of Andrew Jackson, John Calhoun, James Polk - strapping and lean, with sunken cheekbones, often violent. It is a tragic irony that the violence they inflicted on the slaves and the Indians virtually mirrors the violence they suffered from the landlords over generations before they came.

Fischer is a master at destroying a generalization: he does a bravura job of turning one statistic into four. But there is no reason for the process to stop there. The "first wave" of Puritans necessarily came first, with all that the term entails. The latecomers had to go a little further, settle for less attractive land, occupy more humble positions in the social structure. Categories within categories: follow this logic to its conclusion and you face the depressing prospect of knowing nothing at all. But there may be no other way. Hegel said God had to live through the world; otherwise he would have remained mere abstract possibility. So follow the logic and you get to see, not nothing, but everything there is to see.

It's not every day you read a book that's as profound as it is accessible, but this is it; my understanding of American culture- particularly Southern culture- is far more complete having read it. You do not have to be a history fan to enjoy it, but it certainly helps. As revealing and comprehensive as Jones' History of the Vikings-

I picked up this book in hopes to gain a better insight into a part of American History that I didn't focus on in College (European History major) or when I have taught US Hist 101-103. Why? Well, I was working on a genealogical research proj