Albion's Seed: Exploring the Impact of Four British Folkways on American Culture

Joseph Myren: AWESOME

Canada on Jun 13, 2022

Amazon Customer: Bought this after reading the rather long but well worth reading review on Slaterstarcodex.com. Four truly fascinating stories which give real insight into the history of America as well as part of the backstory to what is going on today. It's the sort of book which makes you appreciate diversity - even if its just the incredible diversity of four threads of white Brits in America!

There should be more works like this for eg I would expect Native Americans to have their own stories of how different their tribes are from one another.

It's also interesting because it helps to understand how long term interaction with a particular geography and set of social circumstances can set up what may become entrenched patterns. It reminds me that it is easier to retain bad rather than good patterns of behaviour. I particularly liked that the author identifies the four groups differing characteristics according to food, sex, architecture, colours, sex, politics and liberty. On Local Polity and liberty he ascribes:

Town Meeting and Ordered Liberty to the Puritans of Massachusetts

Parish & Court and Hegemonic Liberty to the distressed...

United Kingdom on Apr 26, 2021

Patrick Sullivan: Fischer identifies four distinct cultural regions, within the United States. These are; the New England Puritans, the Cavaliers of Virginia, the Midlands Quakers, and the Scotch-Irish located in the back country.These four groups orginated from different regions of the British Isles. They each had a very distinct culture. These groups settled in different parts of the American frontier.

Fisher outlines all the different customs and folkways, these people practiced in their new settlements. They also established the various institutions of government, laws, and religion, in their regions. These institutions, enabled many of the cultural traditions, to be passed down through the centuries.

The reader will find many of the traditional folkways, are still practiced in the modern USA. Fischer enables the reader to understand, where all these differences orginated from.

This was a fasinating history book. I hope this approach to history, is taken up by other writers. In particular, I would to love to read about, the different cultural memes within Canada. This book is highly recommended.

Canada on Feb 24, 2016

David F.Gladwin: Excellant book, sent very quickly and really well packed. Thanks

United Kingdom on Oct 28, 2014

Sturdy Shoes: A great read about the origins of the first waves of British immigration to what became the Untied States of America. Fischer presents a fascinating explanation of how the regional lifeways of people from different parts of Britain were actually transmitted to regions of the United States and how those influences can be seen in American society today.

Canada on Jul 20, 2014

T. Graczewski: David Hackett Fischer's "Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America" is a stunning academic achievement. Each of the four folkways described by the author are book length and authoritative. It is remarkable to read just how unique each of these "great migrations" were and how they have left an indelible cultural imprint on those geographic areas long after the original inhabitants faded into oblivion (when's the last time you've seen a Puritan in Boston or a Quaker in Philadelphia?). Fischer explores each migration in great detail, comparing and contrasting a variety of "ways" that defined their cultures: wealth, elites, sex, sports, architecture, religion, speech, family, aging, death, child-rearing, naming conventions, food, work, supernatural beliefs, philosophy and so on.

The author begins with the Puritans, the vast majority of whom emigrated from the East Anglia region of England, who settled New England from 1629 to 1641. The special features of the Puritan experience, according to Fischer, included a relatively salubrious climate; the immigrants tended to be older and middle class (few poor or aristocrats); wealth distribution remained...

United States on Dec 15, 2012

A. Fonteyne: 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...

United States on Nov 04, 2006