This fascinating book is the first volume in a projected cultural history of the United States, from the earliest English settlements to our own time. Itis 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…. More >>
Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America
I took a Colonial America undergraduate course and used this book.
I see why there is so much bias and racism in this country.
You guys can’t even get along with each other, much less with other cultures.
After reading “Chicano Psychology” by Martinez and Mendoza, it solidifies everything that “minorities” in this country think of them.
You guys make the seven deadly sins seem to be your “mission statement.”
Rating: 5 / 5
Albion’s Seed has met with much critical acclaim. It is, however, a simplistic book which draws outrageous conclusions based on mostly secondary evidence. The section on Quakers is particularly weak and continues the same tired and worn out ideas of Frederick Tolles’ about the Quaker transatlantic community from the 1950s. Albion’s Seed offers simple answers for complex questions concerning the Enlgish transatlantic community and assumes that English culture, wherever it came from, was so powerful that it overcame all barriers of time and space. Things are just not that cut and dry. Mr. Fisher’s love affair with England is evident all throughout the bok but in this case it clouded his judgment severely.
Rating: 1 / 5
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.
Rating: 2 / 5
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
Rating: 1 / 5
I found the book to be one of the most informative books that I have read on the forming of America.
Rating: 5 / 5