Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America

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Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America

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This book is the first volume in a cultural history of the United States, from the earliest English settlements to our own time. It is a history of American folkways as they have changed through time, and it argues a thesis about the importance for the United States of having been British in its cultural origins.

From 1629 to 1775, North America was settled by four great wa...more This book is the first volume in a cultural history of the United States, from the earliest English settlements to our own time. It is a history of American folkways as they have changed through time, and it argues a thesis about the importance for the United States of having been British in its cultural origins.

From 1629 to 1775, North America was settled by four great waves of English-speaking immigrants. The first was an exodus of Puritans from the east of England to Massachusetts (1629-1640). The second was the movement of a Royalist elite and indentured servants from the south of England to Virginia (ca. 1649-75). The third was the "Friends' migration,"--the Quakers--from the North Midlands and Wales to the Delaware Valley (ca. 1675-1725). The fourth was a great flight from the borderlands of North Britain and northern Ireland to the American backcountry (ca. 1717-75).

These four groups differed in many ways--in religion, rank, generation and place of origin. They brought to America different folkways which became the basis of regional cultures in the United States. They spoke distinctive English dialects and built their houses in diverse ways. They had different ideas of family, marriage and gender; different practices of child-naming and child-raising; different attitudes toward sex, age and death; different rituals of worship and magic; different forms of work and play; different customs of food and dress; different traditions of education and literacy; different modes of settlement and association. They also had profoundly different ideas of comity, order, power and freedom which derived from British folk-traditions. Albion's Seed describes those differences in detail, and discusses the continuing importance of their transference to America.

Today most people in the United States (more than 80 percent) have no British ancestors at all. These many other groups, even while preserving their own ethnic cultures, have also assimilated regional folkways which were transplanted from Britain to America. In that sense, nearly all Americans today are "Albion's Seed," no matter what their ethnic origins may be; but they are so in their different regional ways. The concluding section of Albion's Seed explores the ways that regional cultures have continued to dominate national politics from 1789 to 1988, and still control attitudes toward education, government, gender, and violence, on which differences between American regions are greater than between European nations.

Albion's Seed also argues that the four British folkways created an expansive cultural pluralism that has proved to the more libertarian than any single culture alone could be. Together they became the determinants of a voluntary society in the United States.(less)

Paperback, 972 pages

Published March 14th 1991 by Oxford University Press, USA (first published 1989)

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Mar 08, 2012 Susanna rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone interested in history

Recommended to Susanna by: New York Times book review

Shelves: history, baroque, american-history, favorites

The four "folkways" looked at are Puritan New England, Quaker Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the Scots-Irish (who went everywhere).

To my mind the best section is that on the Puritans, but the entire book is interesting.

Highly recommended.

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Feb 15, 2009 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: history buffs

More a reference book than a book you read straight through, this book advances the fascinating thesis that four groups of immigrants from England essentially set much of what we now regard as American culture. The links between these four waves of immigrants from particular parts of England, and the Yankee, patrician Virginia, Quaker/Philadelphia, and Appalachian hill cultures, are documented. Its fascinating to see traits that seem inexplicable and odd traced back to obscure corners of 17th an...more More a reference book than a book you read straight through, this book advances the fascinating thesis that four groups of immigrants from England essentially set much of what we now regard as American culture. The links between these four waves of immigrants from particular parts of England, and the Yankee, patrician Virginia, Quaker/Philadelphia, and Appalachian hill cultures, are documented. Its fascinating to see traits that seem inexplicable and odd traced back to obscure corners of 17th and 18th century England. We're talking about the way houses look, the way people get married, their attitude toward government, you name it.

The book is interesting, but not something you get lost in. Its organized topically, with a few dozen categories of human behavior - he calls them 'folkways' - described for each of the four cultures. To be honest, I found the Appalachian culture most fascinating. The group that settled this region came from the boundary area between England and Scotland, carrying with them a culture forged in a thousand years of brutal conflict. Trusting only family and clan, prone to violence, deeply mistrustful of authority, given to pregnancies that proceeded marriage, and even abduction rituals as a playful part of any marriage celebration, this was a wild, warrior culture with a lawless streak.

A string of Presidents beginning with Andrew Jackson, himself known for vicious Indian fighting, endless conflicts over the honor of women, and amazing personal endurance, were descended from this crop of 20,000 who came in the 1700s, were essentially expelled from peace loving Philadelphia, and spread rapidly down the spine of the Appalachian mountains and over to the Ozarks. I've always liked the music that flowed from this crew, but always marveled at the prevalence of murder, suicide, crime, hanging, and general mayhem in the songs handed down from what I would expected to be a more peaceable peasant culture. Suddenly, the confusion was dispelled. Furthermore, the book shed some light on variations in regional attitudes that have puzzled me, for instance the apparent preference in states dominated by Appalachian immigrants for military service and national defense, accompanied by instinctive fear of 'the other,' for keeping money in the family rather than giving it over in taxes, etc. seemed to fit the pattern of the culture transferred from England.

So, history buffs only, take a look if you haven't already. I understand Fisher goes into greater depth in subsequent books on each culture. Let me know what you think if you've read any of them.(less)

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Dec 27, 2009 Elaine rated it 3 of 5 stars

This massive tome shows how the four groups of British who first settled America established regional differences based upon the parts of England that they came from, and also based upon their reasons for emigrating in the first place. Fischer explains their religious beliefs, the kinds of government they set up, their sexual morality, eventhe kinds of houses they built and, of course, the dialects of England they brought with them, on their experiences in Britain. As a native New Englander, I c...more This massive tome shows how the four groups of British who first settled America established regional differences based upon the parts of England that they came from, and also based upon their reasons for emigrating in the first place. Fischer explains their religious beliefs, the kinds of government they set up, their sexual morality, eventhe kinds of houses they built and, of course, the dialects of England they brought with them, on their experiences in Britain. As a native New Englander, I can say that what he says about New England's founding fathers and mothers still persists even with the inevitable changes in culture over the centuries, and the same is true of the South and, definitely, of Appalachia. This is a fascinating book and, although I took it from the library, it is one I'll be buying for myself. One warning: the hardcover version is huge, so try to get a paperback.

The reason for only four stars is the author's annoying habit of footnoting long passages that belong in the text.
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Now that I've finished the book, I downgraded it by a star for three reasons. First, the structure is very poor. For each of the four groups of settlers from England, he writes separate sections which include where they came from, their marriage customs, religion, speech, etc. Structurally, so the reader could better compare their folkways, each of these sections should have formed one chapter, so that the chapter on marriage customs would then be subdivided into those of each of the 4 original groups of settlers.

Second, the sections on the settler's speech are unnecessarily wrong. He should have consulted with some linguists who specialize in historical linguistics and dialects. My latest blog post goes into this in more detail:
http://www.smarhotoldlady.blogspot.com

Third, I began to doubt his veracity about building styles and site layout when he said, as a native of the Chesapeake Bay area, where the original settlers were from the Southwest of England, when he walks around there, it is just like walking around in Maryland -- the road layout, clustering of houses, etc. Well, he waxes grand on rural Southwest England and I'm sure he's accurate. However, we just spent two weeks in rural East Anglia (whence the Puritans came)and Sussex, and his descriptions of the Southwest fit the dwelling patterning in the East to a T. The point is, Maryland is as like East Anglia as it is of the Southwest of England. There goes that claim.(less)

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Dec 31, 2011 Carl Williams rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

Albion’s Seed is a wonderful social history of the first waves of colonization from England to North America: The Puritans to New England, the Cavilers to the South, misnamed “Scots Irish” to the Appalachian region, and the Quakers to the Delaware Valley. Well written, and easily readable Fischer explores a plethora of cultural areas including: family structure, courting and sex, speech patterns, gender, religion, dress, food, beliefs in the supernatural, approach to work, social hierarchy, recr...more

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Nov 11, 2007 Richard's Bibby rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: History buffs

I am currently working my way though this 898 page history of the demographic importance of British settlers to creating the American identity. This is an academic level analysis of four differently types of immigrant groups to America with regard to "folk ways" -- the author's catch-all term for demographic, religious, traditional and familial relationships. The cross disciplinarian nature of the analysis makes some areas forgettable -- I'm much more interested in the religious aspects of the P...more

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Apr 29, 2013 Lynn added it

It's an odd feeling to read a history of the main regional groupings of colonial America and see the place you grew up left out, particularly odd when that place is one of the biggest metropolitan areas in the US. "Where's New York? How does New York fit into this scheme?" I kept asking. The answer became clear in the conclusion. Fischer had left New York City out (upstate New York he sees as fitting in culturally with New England) because it was, during colonial times, basically a growth from N...more It's an odd feeling to read a history of the main regional groupings of colonial America and see the place you grew up left out, particularly odd when that place is one of the biggest metropolitan areas in the US. "Where's New York? How does New York fit into this scheme?" I kept asking. The answer became clear in the conclusion. Fischer had left New York City out (upstate New York he sees as fitting in culturally with New England) because it was, during colonial times, basically a growth from New Amsterdam, a city more Dutch than English in culture. And this book is the story of England's contribution to American culture, and the ways in which the different regional cultures of the UK influenced the different regional cultures of the US. This isn't, I realized as I read the book, actually my usual mental focus, as a New York raised daughter of a Greek immigrant; I tend to think more often about the Ellis Island experience, for all that I learned in school about colonial days. But I did find that his account explained some things that had puzzled me.

The choice gives a particular slant to Fischer's history. He emphasizes the ways in which existing culture shapes the economic choices of a region over the ways in which the means of production shape culture (no Marxist analysis here, where everything else would be superstructure to the economic base). He emphasizes the regional cultures brought to the New World over the ways in which the New World shaped these cultures: the ways in which Southern culture was predisposed to choose slavery more than the ways in which slavery changed Southern cavalier culture, the ways in which the borderland peoples chose a particular adaption to the frontier more than the ways in which the frontier changed borderland peoples, the ways in which non-Anglo-Americans adapted to existing regional cultures (JFK and Dukakis becoming New England Yankees and Barry Goldwater a representative of the borderland/Scots-Irish culture) more than the ways in which immigrants shifted American culture. If the short history at the end of the book about how the four cultures have been reflected in the Presidency were carried forward till the present, Barack Obama might appear as a representative of the middle America background of his Kansas born mother.

So does the book, as one skeptical friend wondered, attempt one single explanation of American history? I would say not. Fischer acknowledges the things he's leaving out (though in one case, when discussing Reconstruction, I think he allows too little for how that history might have been altered if ex-slaves had actually gotten those 40 acres and a mule), even as he chooses not to dwell on them. He isn't, after all, saying that American history can be reduced to the history of those four regional British cultures. Rather, he is saying that these four regional British cultures have had, and still have, a strong influence on our country. And for that, he makes a good case.

The strength of the book is in the description of all four cultures, and the ways in which all four are tied back to regions in England (and Scotland and northern Ireland in the case of the border people), class relations and historical events at the time of immigration.

In his account, I see explanations for genealogical, cultural, and political things, such as:

1) Why does every single line on my grandfather's father's family tree seem to go back to some ship arriving in New England from England sometime in the 1630s? It turns out it's because that's simply what New England was like, before the Irish potato famine immigration. It's the earliest of his four waves of immigration (there were very early settlers in Virginia, but their big wave came a little later), and *everyone* showed up not long after 1630.

2) Cahn's and Carbone's red and blue families? These turn out to look very much like New England families vs. Scots-Irish families, if you simply add birth control to New England families and weaken the power of the shotgun marriage in Scots-Irish families. New England families, if Fischer's account is right, *always* married later and more educated, while Scots-Irish families married younger and more often following a pregnancy.

3) Fischer describes sharp differences in the Gini coefficient of different parts of the country leading to differences in what tax money went for. New England, which strove for equality both by bringing in mostly middle class immigrants rather than rich or poor ones and by evenly distributing land, wound up with taxes going mostly for shared public goods like schools, while the South, the land of second sons of aristocrats and poor indentured servants (until it became also the part of the country with slaves) had a much more uneven distribution of wealth and therefore a larger portion of tax money going to the very poor. As I read that, it made sense that New England would wind up more tax friendly.

The cultures that are most familiar to me (Quaker and New England cultures) seemed well described, and the Southern cultures were made more explicable. On the whole a good book.(less)

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Jan 04, 2013 Jacque Sherbak rated it 4 of 5 stars

Excellent resource/reference-like 900+ pgs, volume. Exploring the four British Folkways which were transplanted to America and became the basis for the pluralism that American democracy was founded on. These were the Puritans who became the Boston Bay Colony 1629-40.) The British elite and their indentured servants immigrated from 1642-75 and settled in the Virginia/Chesapeake Tidewater area. They came to escape a system that favored a single eldest son as heir to family fortunes. The third grou...more

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Feb 16, 2012 Liz rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: couldnt-finish, history

This is the book that finally made me start becoming much more discerning in whose recommendations I followed for what book to read. I can't count the number of others who are interested in history, family history, etc. and told me that this was one of the best books about the colonial period in what became the U.S. Perhaps my issue was that I came at it from a background of anthropology and the study of religions in addition to having studied history, social history, and genealogy. But I hadn't...more

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Jan 02, 2012 Jerry rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

Excellent book explains the origins of the distinctly different cultures that exist in the U.S. These have their roots in the origins and time of the migration from Britain.
For example:

East Anglia to Massachusetts 1629 - 1641
Calvinist Puritans escaping religious persecution
Middle class excluding the top tier of royalty and the bottom tier of poverty
Wealth distinctions not great e.g. Top 10% had 31% of property, bottom 50% had 18%
Men married at 26, women at 23, 98% of men married, 94% of women
To...more

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Sep 16, 2011 Jessica rated it 4 of 5 stars

okay, so my dad recommended this book to me, and even though there's NO WAY i'll be able to finish it before it needs to go back to the library (it is one fat tome), i thought i'd put a review up anyway, because i'm enjoying it so much. this book is FASCINATING. it's a bit more scholarly of a book than i typically read but it's so interesting that i've had a hard time putting it down. the book is basically a cultural history of america with the idea that the culture that was brought by 4 distinc...more

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Jan 29, 2011 Bob Woods rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction-history

I followed up reading "Born Fightin': The History of the Scots-Irish" by reading this book. I'm glad to have read both together, as this book validates the historical references in Born Fightin'.

I enjoyed reading this book, but it's not for the light reader - it's a historical and anthropological look at the four regions of Great Britain (focus on England, but also part of Scotland and Wales) and the patterns of migration from those regions to distinct parts of the now US/then British colonies (...more I followed up reading "Born Fightin': The History of the Scots-Irish" by reading this book. I'm glad to have read both together, as this book validates the historical references in Born Fightin'.

I enjoyed reading this book, but it's not for the light reader - it's a historical and anthropological look at the four regions of Great Britain (focus on England, but also part of Scotland and Wales) and the patterns of migration from those regions to distinct parts of the now US/then British colonies (New England, Virginia, Pennsylvania/New Jersey/Delaware/Maryland, and the Appalachian frontier). The author is extremely thorough in laying out his historical hypothesis, the other hypotheses that are generally accepted in the historical community, and his reasons for supporting his claims. He looks at 20 - 25 distinct "folkways" that each region/group of people had, how those folkways affected the make-up of their region in both Great Britain and the US, and the long-term implications of those belief systems in US culture today.

As someone who's from the Pennsylvania, etc. region of the country, it was very insightful to see how the North Midlands people who migrated there (specifically the Quaker society) created the cultural norms that still exist in the Delaware Valley today. I found it fascinating that beliefs brought by the Puritans, Cavaliers, Quakers, and "Borderers" (Scots-Irish and Irish) to New England, Virgina, the Delaware Valley, and Appalachian Frontier, respectively, still exist today - it's something you can see in interactions with people native to those areas today. For example, the English language dialects of the day in England that were brought between 1600 and 1750 to the US still exist in the US (for example, the "Boston" accent, "Philadelphia" way of speaking, and "Southern drawl"). I was under the impression that those dialects were the product of their growth in the US, but they actually existed in England before those people moved to the colonies. It makes one wonder how other languages will change as outlying areas are separated from the core of the language - Taiwanese Chinese vs. Mandarin vs. Cantonese come to mind as an example.

Overall, I would recommend this book to the historical/anthropological minded person that wants to understand our current political mindsets in various regions of the country in historical context. It's amazing how cultural norms from 17th century England continue to permeate our culture and cause friction in our political system - something that is not new according to the author and his (high-level) lookback through political history in the US.(less)

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Jan 04, 2013 Robert Snow rated it 5 of 5 stars

One of the most interesting books I have ever read on the culture of America, Prof Hackett's thesis of the four folkways and how they shaped American life is brilliant. Many years ago I heard him on NPR talking about the four folkways that of the Puritan's in New England, Quaker's in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the Scots-Irish in the Appalachian hill people. One of his premises is that the culture or folkways of New Englanders comes from the settlers from East Anglia where all legal disputes wer...more

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Apr 23, 2012 Ann Call rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

Albion is Great Britain, and Albion's Seed is Great Briton's children, who - during the 16th and 17th Centuries - depart Albion at different times, settling Colonial America in isolated spots. They want to stay isolated and practice living by their own value systems, with the added bonus of land, which they believe is free for the taking.

Four different stories, brought together for a revolution against Mother England. What drove them to stay? How did they ever get together to rebel against Engl...more

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Feb 23, 2011 Charity rated it 4 of 5 stars

I would have given it 5 stars but based on personal history (coming from a family of Quakers who landed in the Delaware Valley/Phila) and my wide and deep reading of the Puritan fathers, I have some lingering questions on some facts. Otherwise, I enjoyed it and found it enjoyable and enlightening read.
As with most social histories, this lacks an in-depth understanding of the Puritan's philosophy/theology - and that more than any other one thing was behind most of what they did. Still, the book i...more

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Jul 25, 2012 Hank Fay rated it 5 of 5 stars

My father's family was entirely Yankee, and members of the Congregational Church (descendants of the Puritans, before it became liberal). Reading about the Puritan Migration, I was constantly surprised by what I had not known about my own culture, and found no dissonance with what I did know.

I'm on the 4th and last Folkway (migration) now: the Border people of England and Scotland. While they settled in many places, the US culture-at-large (rightly) identifies this immigrants as living in Appala...more

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Apr 16, 2009 Linda rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book was briefly referenced in the fascinating book "Outliers". This author examines the four great waves of British immigration to America from 1629 to 1775, and convincingly proposes that the regional cultural differences that we are now familiar with in the US (Southern vs Northeast, Delaware vs Backcountry) have their origins in the customs and culture of specific geographical areas of Britain. The societies in each British location had their own religions, dialects, architecture, ideas...more

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Jul 16, 2012 AndreaZ rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, nonfiction

I have been interested in the whole "culture of honor" idea for awhile, as I thought my quick fuse was somehow inseparable from having a Scot-Irish heritage. Turns out, mebbe it's true. I love how the book has a very good scholarly reputation and it is easy to read. The footnotes (yay! not end notes) attest to the great depths of research the author performed.

The United States is a geographically diverse area with lots of different cultural microcosms. It's amazing that four waves of emigrants...more

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Oct 10, 2010 Patrick rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, non-fiction

Albion's Seed is a detailed look at how four waves of British immigration (from four different regions of England) shaped regional cultures in the US, in ways that are still apparent today. The author defines a number of "folkways" (e.g. religion, attitude toward education, definition of Liberty) and describes them for each cultural group. He relates their original English culture to their culture in the New World, and he discusses some of the problematic issues they cause. (Surprise: Southerner...more

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Nov 04, 2009 Deb added it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, england, america, language, culture, behavior, nonfiction

"Admittedly, I have not quite finished this, and have only been able to read it in small bits interspersed with my other books - it's a lot of information. But it's fascinating! I've seen a lot of the differences between myself (from Virginia) and my local friends (NY) explained - slang expressions, favorite foods, manners. Not to mention learned a lot about regional differences in England that I wasn't really aware of.[return][return]I also learned a lot more about early American immigrants tha...more

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Jan 14, 2011 John Vibber rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a fine book for those with plenty of time and a deep love of history. It illuminates how the pattern of settlement in Colonial America affects us in a multitude of ways you would never expect.

I learned of this book when reading about the 'Scotch-Irish' during the Civil War and Reconstruction. When I read the corresponding section in Albion's Seed, I realized how little I knew about my own Yankee roots as well. Consequently, I read the rest of the book.

If you love American History as I...more

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Apr 02, 2012 Wink rated it 5 of 5 stars

Essential reading for all who follow British-American history. I avoided it for years because of its size but finally took the plunge and am sorry I waited. If you have any interest at all in the origins and destinations of the different groups of British settlers to the North American continent, you will learn much from this book. To try to encapsulate it would be absurd due to the massive amount of information it contains. If you or your ancestors hail from New England, the Chesapeake, the Vir...more

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Aug 31, 2011 Emily rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a fascinating history book. It shows how four distinct British migrations to America in the 17th and 18th centuries founded four distinct regions of this country: New England, the Delaware Valley, the Chesapeake Bay area and the inland ("back-country") South, which shape the architecture, social attitudes, food, accents, politics, family structure, educational levels, etc. of these regions to this day. The book is 972 pages long (of which about half is source notes), but it was so intere...more

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Feb 05, 2010 Delway Burton rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a scholarly work - a text/reference book. It is in no way light reading. I feel that it is the best, condensed explanation of American regional culture, indeed it gets to the very heart of how we came to be, as anything I have ever read. Anyone deeply interested in the history of the United States should place this wonderful book on their "to read" list. Otherwise, discussions such as the personal differences between Adams and Jefferson, or why the North is different from the South, occu...more

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Jul 08, 2010 Max rated it 5 of 5 stars

A foundational book for colonial historians and family historians with New England,Chesapeake, lower Delaware or Appalachian colonial ancestors. Results of extensive demographic research are presented in engaging narrative fashion, and, despite its formidable size, it's an easy book to pick up, dip into, put down, and return to without extensive re-reading. It also helps one understand the "red" and "blue" political divisions in contemporary USA, the mixed character of G.W. Bush, etc., so that i...more

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Jan 08, 2009 Pete rated it 5 of 5 stars

DHF, now better known for big, corny-looking books on George Washington and Champlain, never better than here. Attempts to basically write a field theory of American culture by detailing the folkways of four great migrations to the US. Couldn't ask for a better explanations why Anglo-American culture is the way it is. Lose some luster for not having anything to say about non-Anglo integration (or not much, anyway) but still massive work of scholarship, very readable. Anyone who gives a toot abou...more

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Nov 11, 2012 Thomas rated it 5 of 5 stars

A seriously engaging read for those interested in the British roots of American culture and the regional differences that have persisted to the present day.

The book is divided into five sections, dealing with Massachusetts/Puritans, Virginia/Cavaliers, Pennsylvania/Quakers, Appalachia/"Scots-Irish," and a synthesis section that focuses heavily upon the Electoral College and presidential elections from 1789-1989. The section on Quakers was the only disappointing part of the book for me, perhaps b...more

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Mar 14, 2013 Paula rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is one of those books that I've read in order to learn more about my ancestor's lives. This is fascinating reading, well written and informative. I've enjoyed every moment, and feel as if I've learned a great deal. The author's primary goal was to prove his thesis about how four distinct cultures, that migrated to America from four different regions of England, have influenced American culture. The preponderance of evidence is certainly convincing. If this were all the book was about, it wo...more

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Jan 21, 2010 Cindy rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: scholars of American history

Shelves: 10-10-10, non-fiction, reference, religion, history, america, 17th-century

This is a mammoth book. It's over 900 pages long, with footnotes on every single page, full of charts, diagrams, illustrations, pedigree charts, and more. It's the size of a phone book.

And I loved it.

As a work of research, it's incredibly impressive. The amount of time it must have taken to compile such a book is truly staggering. As a source of information, it's fantastic. The footnotes, plus a bibliography in the back, directs you where to find out more information on just about any subject co...more This is a mammoth book. It's over 900 pages long, with footnotes on every single page, full of charts, diagrams, illustrations, pedigree charts, and more. It's the size of a phone book.

And I loved it.

As a work of research, it's incredibly impressive. The amount of time it must have taken to compile such a book is truly staggering. As a source of information, it's fantastic. The footnotes, plus a bibliography in the back, directs you where to find out more information on just about any subject covered in the book. As a handy reference, it's superb. The book is organized so well that the reader knows just where to go to find what information he or she wants, and can skip right over any irrelevant material.

As light reading, maybe not so much.

But what can I say? I just loved this book.

Fischer's basic premise is that America today is largely the result of four separate, very different emigrations of English settlers during colonial times. He takes each of the four groups - Puritans, Virginians, Quaker, and border folks - and describes their origins, their customs, and their relationships in great detail. He debunks several myths and backs up everything he says with solid research. And he manages to make it all an interesting read.

There's so much in here, I really can't begin to tell you what I learned. But a couple of things really stand out to me now that I've finished.

First, is that as I was reading about the four different groups, I was able to place my own ancestors in each of the four groups. My mom's family contains both Puritan ancestors and while there are no Quakers, there are those who settled among them and picked up their ways. My dad's family is solidly on the Virginian and border folks side. I found myself understanding why different ancestors had done things in a certain way, and why there was some conflict over traditions.

Second, I could clearly see how these four very different sets of people would come to disagree. The roots of the American Civil War were sown before America was even a country. The Puritans and Quakers were bound to view slavery as a moral issue, and to clearly support the cause of abolition, the one by force of arms, and the other by assisting runaways. The Virginians and the border folks (you can call them rednecks if you like - apparently the term came from England along with them, and isn't American at all) were bound to stick up for individual liberty, the Virginians contending that they in fact had liberty to enslave and the rednecks firm that no one had the right to tell them what they could do, especially the government. The real wonder here is not that Civil War happened, but that it took so long and that the country was every able to heal back together afterwards.

The last thing that struck me was about the history of my own faith, the Mormons or Latter-day Saints. Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, my LDS ancestors and others, all came from the Puritan roots. They were Yankees, well steeped in the traditions of having a religious duty to fulfill, and the firm commitment to community and to God. They also picked up from the Quaker community a little of the family ways, the idea of rearing children in love, and seeking the Individual Light.

Then they came in contact with the border folks, who were very closed to outsiders, especially ones that arrived as a close-knit group already, intolerant of any dissent, and more than ready to fight anyone they saw as a threat. Of course they were going to be ready to respond with violence against any group that tried to settle among them, and to force them out any way they could. And the Latter-day Saints were bound to respond by drawing even closer together and defending themselves. But the idea of moving on, of settling down wherever they were planted, and making do with the rough environment, that was something that they picked up to a degree from the very border folks who were so set on forcing them out. So when the Saints arrived in the West and had some freedom to move around without interference, they were able to spread out from Canada to Mexico and establish small tight-knit communities that thrived in the harshest environment.

Would I recommend this book? Maybe. Certainly if you want a quick, easy read, this is not for you. But if you are interested in American history, this is a fascinating book. Don't be put off by the size. A lot of it is in footnotes that you can easily skip and charts and diagrams that are likewise easy to skip. And if you aren't interested in one particular section or group of settlers, although I recommend reading something about all of them, it is organized so that you can find just what you want and pass over what you don't want. It certainly gave me a lot to think about, and while it took me a little while to read, it was worth taking my time and enjoying the book. 5 stars.(less)

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Nov 01, 2008 Dan rated it 3 of 5 stars

If allowed, I probably would have rated this book 2.5 stars, but I decided to round up. This 800+ page book could have probably been written in 300+ pages without much loss.

The argument is clear: four sets of British folkways found their way to the British North American colonies in relatively distinct sets of colonies: Puritans in New England, Quakers in Pennsylvania/Delaware/New Jersey, "Cavaliers" [???] in the Chesapeake, and Scots-Irish in the backcountry. These four sets of folkways set the...more

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Jan 23, 2008 Eric rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: academic-like-crap, poly-social-stuffz

David hackett Fischer's Albion's Seed is a remarkable text. I first heard it mentioned in Dennis Covington's Salvation on Sand Mountain (It's in my book list if you are interested).

The sheer scope of the project, to trace the migration of English and Scots-Irish from England and Northern Britian to North America from 1629 to 1775, is staggering. What Fischer does is nothing short of amazing. He traces the folkways (defined by the author as the functioning systems in any society) of the people i...more

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About David Hackett Fischer

David Hackett Fischer is University Professor and Earl Warren Professor of History at Brandeis University. His major works have tackled everything from large macroeconomic and cultural trends (Albion's Seed, The Great Wave) to narrative histories of significant events (Paul Revere's Ride, Washington's Crossing) to explorations of historiography (Historians' Fallacies, in which he coined the term H...more

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Historians' Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought

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