09-01-2016, 09:11 AM
(08-30-2016, 02:39 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(08-30-2016, 01:30 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: One of my favorite general books on American history, Albion's Seed, suggests that patterns in American life were set early by the first British and Dutch settlers.
I favor a book that covers much the same ground, The Cousins' Wars: Religion, Politics, Civil Warfare, And The Triumph Of Anglo-America It's focus is a little narrower, proposing that the English Civil War, American Revolution and American Civil War are extensions of one another, can be understood as a continuation of the same conflict. It shares much the same perspective of first the thirteen colonies then the United States being settled in three major zones, New England, Pennsylvania and the South. Albion's Seed looks like it covers wider timeframes and territories, but it reflects a very similar framework.
Cousins, along with Albion's, is another of what must be the top 10 non-fiction reads by the "reading class" on this forum.
Two other books in this area: Jim Webb's Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America and much more recently, JD Vance's Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis are also must-reads.
I have mixed feelings about Webb, and one needs to take that into a reading of his book, but Born Fighting does take the more impersonal context of Albion's and Cousins' to a more personal level of insight - remembering both that it is about the Scot-Irish and it is written from the perspective of a Scot-Irish political being that questions that heritage but is obviously proud to be a part of it.
The deeper dive, however, is this new Hillbilly Elegy. Webb's book will tell you why Trumpism has emerged; Vance's book provides the longer-term insight of where these people are headed long after the election has past and the likely consequences for the rest of us.