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Summary: Most interesting book of U.S.A. cultural origins
Review: A most interesting and fascinating book about the beginnings of the English colonies in America - with the impacts still being felt today. Covers everything from wealth, religion, and food to power and politics
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Summary: No Genealogist Should be Without THIS Book!
Review: Albion's Seed is the book that should be in every genealogists home library. It has more information on the lifestyles of early immigrants to this country than any book I've read. Mr. Fisher has found the best way in which to tell us how our ancestors lived, from the Puritans of Massachussetts, to the Mountains of North Carolina. His presentation is second to none, in a way that helps us all learn our roots, as well as our history.
This is a MUST have
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Summary: excellent history of colonial America
Review: Mr. Fischer examines 4 population groups emigrating from Britain to early America, and compares their values, politics, sociology, etc. This is fascinating reading. A must for understanding ourselves as Americans.
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Summary: Highest Praise
Review: 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.
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Summary: Stunning: Five stars are not enough
Review: 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.")
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 root 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 generations to come of doctoral and master's 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 largely 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.
(Imagine applying the same methodology to other English-speaking colonies. Or other countries with well-defined immigrant waves, like the Spanish and French colonies, or Israel.)
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 was and is very real. I am descended on my father's side from the 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. The less fierce is the Anglo-Scottish type.) 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. See, e.g., Rob Roy. Since there was no effective government, each man, or more accurately, each clan, was its own law. Contrary to a common misconception, this has nothing to do with the American frontier, or 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. 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, partly because of slavery, but then into alliance in the 20th century, because of a common opposition to growing government and immigration.
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 border-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 strong 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 his 17th-century Midlands prose is, not by coincidence, 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.
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Summary: A mind-expanding read
Review: 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.
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Summary: Interesting Questions raised, but problems remain
Review: 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.
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Summary: Anthropology - not history
Review: 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.
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Summary: Excellent Cultural History
Review: 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.
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Summary: Highest Praise
Review: 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.
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