History Books – Unblinking Eye

Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America, by David Hackett Fischer (Oxford University Press: 1989). Perhaps the most important book of American History this century. Fischer's unique approach makes sense of events in American history that I never understood before. Like, what was the whiskey rebellion really all about? Why was Andrew Jackson's marriage so controversial? And, why were Patton and Eisenhower so radically different, yet each one a great general? Fischer also enlightens his readers regarding many peculiar vagaries of American politics over the past two centuries.

Fischer has made an in-depth study of the cultural folkways of four groups of early American immigrants: the Puritans, who moved primarily from East Anglia to Massachusetts; the English gentry and their indentured servants, who came from the South of England and settled in North Carolina and Virginia; the Quaker Friends, who migrated primarily from the North Midlands and settled in the Delaware Valley; and the Borderlanders of North England and South Scotland who settled the backcountry of Pennsylvania and eventually the Appalachians. Fischer's approach is to analyze the folkways of each group into comparable units: speech, building, family, marriage, gender, sex, naming, child-rearing, age, death, religion, magic, learning, literacy, food, dress, sport, work, time, wealth, inheritance, rank, association, order, power, and freedom.

After an exhaustive analysis of regional folkways in England and America, which can at times be tedious, Fischer moves on to the truly fascinating part of his study in his conclusion, subtitled The Origin and Persistence of Regional Cultures in the United States. One brief observation will have to serve as an example of the insights Albion's Seed offers: "The war fever of '98 marked the beginning of a consistent pattern in American military history. From the quasi-war with France to the Vietnam War, the two southern cultures strongly supported every American War no matter what it was about or who it was against. Southern ideas of honor and the warrior ethic combined to create regional war fevers of great intensity in 1798, 1812, 1846, 1861, 1889, 1917, 1941, 1950 and 1965."

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The Birth of the Modern, World Society 1815-1830, by Paul Johnson (HarperCollins, 1991). The scope of this book is so broad that it is virtually impossible to summarize it in a review, and, in retrospect, it is hard to believe it covers only 15 years. I’m pretty well-read, but I was amazed at how little I really know about the origins of the modern world. While the emphasis of the book is on England and the U.S., the author does cover events in Europe, the Middle East, Russia, South America, and the Far East. I recommend treating it like a magazine--just flip through, find something that catches your attention, and start reading. You won’t be disappointed.

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