Treating Ontario as part of the Midlands is a cop-out. They might be following the dialect breakdown too much. I don't think they quite have Western Pennsylvania, or the Ohio Valley in general, right.
Did David Hackett Fisher ever explain why he was never able to do follow-ups to the theory of Albion's Seed? I've always assumed it was because his theory, while fun, started to collapse under scrutiny and especially when you move beyond formally completely independent colonies and 17th C English regional differences, but I actually have no idea how he sees the book now or how pro historians see it.
I mean IIRC in the book he promises that it's the first part of a series and there are sequels forthcoming but it seems at this point that's like the implied promise in Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins.
at this point that's like the implied promise in Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins
Personally, I'm still disappointed that we never got Buckaroo Banzai: Against the World Crime League.
Obviously the disparities between states and regions shows that there is something going on.
I would be very interested if they studied internal migrations more deeply, for instance whether Deep South blacks during/after the Great Migration were more violent or honor bound in the upper Midwest than native blacks; or what changes Dust Bowl migrants made to Central California culture.
There are very few states after the first 13 that aren't characterized by migrations, including ongoing. I don't know if Texas attracts a "type," if everybody adjusts to a Texas "culture" (whatever culture is, and whatever mysterious mechanisms,) or if the latest wave of Californians will change Texas. Or parts.
Overall, it really is only a source of amusement, and probably not interesting or useful. Dallas is so unlike Tyler, and Tyler has pockets of alien attitudes.
Treating Ontario as part of the Midlands is a cop-out.
Agreed. "Founded by English Quakers," and with "a German, rather than British, majority at the time of the Revolution" is not a very convincing description of Upper Canada/Ontario.
The first thing that comes to mind is: you know what other part of the world was settled and ruled by southern English aristocrats? Southern England. So how come Buckinghamshire isn't an intensely violent honour-based culture in hock to a demented vision of the Age of Chivalry? For that matter, how come Windermere and Kendal (in the war-ravaged borderlands, you know) aren't also dominated by "a culture formed in a state of near-constant danger and upheaval, characterised by a warrior ethic"? I've been there. They're dominated by a culture formed in a state of near-constant visits by Chinese tour groups and hiking parties, characterised by a tea and scones ethic.
2: He promised one on New Netherlands, and I was mad that he didn't do it. I'm kind of interested in reading the book by Russell Shorto that was mentioned in the article; I'd never heard of it.
IIRC, a few major American history works in the 1970s/80s promised sequels that never came. I think maybe Roll, Jordan, Roll also was supposed to be the first of a series. I assume publishers' decisions are part of the reasons the sequels never happened.
Bailyn may have been the only one to follow through (with his "Peopling of North America" series.
N.B. I've finished none of those books but may or may not have answered questions about them on oral exams.
11: Did you have to answer any questions about Fischer's Albion's Seed? Does Fischer address ajay's question/objection in 8: i.e., why isn't southern England a violent, honour-bound culture of heavily armed would-be cavaliers?
I'm just positing a theory that fits the observed evidence.
Part of it probably had to do with Moby's point. Fischer says the southern aristocracy was populated by otherwise landless second sons and the losers of the English Civil War. These were guys with chips on their shoulders and something to prove. They didn't have the security of the aristocracy that was left behind (after the Restoration, anyway).
Nevermind that plantation slavery generates a feedback loop for concentrating human awfulness. System based on one group feeling superior makes group feel superior! Gasp.
Bah. Anybody who just looks at white descendants of plantation culture in Dixie is obviously and probably deliberately ignoring half the population of Dixie.
Looking at the map, it makes more sense, and that not very much, to correlate Climate and Culture +geography
Gun Control Debate Among African-Americans ...Pretty interesting, MLK applied for a carry permit, but now African Americans are the demographic least likely to own guns. Path dependent, historically contingent.
"When Rosa Parks and her husband began organizing meetings in their home she claims (ed ?) she had no place to put refreshments 'with the table so covered in guns.'"
14: I did, but I don't know the answer to that one since I didn't read the book. I knew the answers to most of what I was asked about it, with the exception of some obscure question that the other members of the committee basically rolled their eyes at and the questioner didn't really ask seriously. It was more, "do you remember what Fisher claimed about X*? Can you believe that guy?"
*I don't remember, I think it was something about a word origin.
I said this last time this was mentioned, but lumping the Northern Midwest with N England as "Yankeedom" really irks me. The Lutherans are anything but "radical Calvinists," even if we're also reserved, left-leaning Statists.* Call it, "personally-uptight-but-left-leaning-by-American-standards-Northern-European-dom," but Yankeedom is a really inaccurate term.
*Tolerance of big government in N. Europe comes from a really different and practically opposite place from Puritan theocracy
Who the hell is Robert Halford?
I thought one of Fisher's more convincing claims, if I remember it right, was that slavery was attractive to lesser-born English aristocrats who wanted to maintain status, and the slave system in Virginia was set up in large part for status-based reasons. That is, much of the motive for importing slaves was not a rational cost/benefit belief that one could get financially rich by running a plantation with slaves. People wanted slaves for the fun of having slaves, because slaves let you live like super-lords in a way not possible (for these guys) in England Seems kind of obvious when put that way.
That said, once up and running, the fact of slavery seems way more important and way more parsimonious as an explanation for Southern/Tidewater culture than some kind of transmitted-by-birth-and-ethos propensity of younger-son English aristocrats from particular regions of Southern England to violence that persisted through 20 generations.
My theory is is that 25% of "southern honor" was hypertophied guilt for getting rich off of slave labor, the other 75% was hypertrophied worry about the role of white women in a system where men were literally fucking the slaves right and left, and a respectable planter could grow up owning his half-sister so long as it was never quite admitted that she was a half-sister.
Roberto Tigre makes more sense than Robert Halford.
[L]umping the Northern Midwest with N[ew] England as "Yankeedom" really irks me.
Me too. Those people dress like shit.
I've read Garreau's Nine Nations and none of the other books. The map linked in the OP lines up closely with Garreau plus some refinements.
I'm basically sceptical about cultural mores inherited over such long periods, but the regional framework seems useful as a rule of thumb regardless of causation.
I am really interested in the Barbados-Deep South link. Any book recs?
It really feels like he got bored halfway across the country and phoned the rest in.
26: Some background here, although that post doesn't appear to mention the book it was mostly based on, which is The Indian Slave Trade by Alan Gallay.
More Barbados, this time with book link included.
Mossy when would be the best time(s) of year to visit Roc Island (?) weather-wise and when would be the time(s) of year to avoid? Have you been living there long?
Tidewater places a high value on respect for authority and tradition, and very little on equality or public participation in politics.
Yeah, Virginia's impact on US political history has been minimal, especially in those early Tidewater years.
how come Windermere and Kendal (in the war-ravaged borderlands, you know) aren't also dominated by "a culture formed in a state of near-constant danger and upheaval, characterised by a warrior ethic"?
There are Blackburn Rovers, and Doncaster ones too, but you won't find any such thing in, say, Milton Keynes.
The New French influence is manifest in Canada, where multiculturalism and negotiated consensus are treasured.
This must be why Quebec is so tolerant of bilingualism, unlike the rest of Canada, where English speakers are forced to learn French.
The French don't have a word for "sarcasm."
I hereby award Moby one Point d'ironie.
I was drinking quasi-French beer tonight. I had always just thought of Belgium as a place where the Germans tested their tanks, but they apparently make a very strong type of beer.
Thanks Teo!
Barry - I've only been here since October, but the best time is winter. The weather was unpleasantly hot and humid in Oct, right now is cool, around 20 degrees. I haven't felt full summer heat, and am somewhat dreading it. Also bear in mind typhoon season, June-Oct.
22, 26: See also the Dutch, who seem to have exported their violence (the wastrel theory) or imported its fruits (the walrus vs the carpenter). Somebody -Schama?- tried to figure out which by looking for colonial effects correlated with strict primogeniture in the colonizing country.
My dad spoke French with near-native fluency (he learned French on the mean streets of Mechanicsville, a working-class, French-Canadian and Irish, neighourhood of Ottawa), but he would never admit that he spoke la belle langue at all. O, just a few words and phrase here and there, darling. Visiting Montreal with my old man was a bit of a trip: we presented as 'anglos,' but my dad heard and understood everything. He could speak le joual when he wished to do so; but often he did not wish to do so.
He loved French Canada much more than he could ever love Yankee New England, though. He was devoted to Sainte Marguerite Bourgeoys, and also, of course, to Our Lady. Because Catholic, and etc. Totally normal in the province of Québec, but maybe a bit weird from a New English perspective.
I'm always struck by how these schemes ignore Canada as an entity, as a whole. That Canadians as a whole might share something distinctive, however many "nations" might be identified or related to contiguous ones in the U.S.
41 and 42: For instance, the Maritimes and Newfoundland do share some characteristics with Yankeedom (pie for breakfast) but I'd argue that the prevalence of Irish Catholics (and French Catholics) would shift their 'nation' closer to Quebec than to anything south or west of Boston.
And further to 42, I would argue the Canadian Prairies are completely different than ND, SD, let alone Utah and California (grains/fur vs. ranching; birthplace of wheat pool and socialized medicine vs. not). Like such a difference that I wish the author had just left off Canada.
43: Agreed. Canada breaks itself up into pretty clear nations: Maritimes, Far North (maybe this should be two--Inuit experience is different from non-tundra First Nations), Newfoundland, Francophone Central Canada, Anglophone Central Canada, The Prairies, maybe put Coastal BC in with the rest of Cascadia. Canada is a nation that holds itself together with pure stick-to-it-ness and viewing it as just some part of the US but colder is ignorant.
Canada is a nation that holds itself together with pure stick-to-it-ness and a shared love of sex with bears.
Anyhow, regionalism is endlessly fascinating (to me) but the 9 or 11 or whatever nations concept is dumb. I mean I could put together a map of the "nine nations of Los Angeles" or the "nine nations of California" that would group together some commonalities, but would be pretty ridiculous. I'm pretty sure you could do the same for any geographic entity.
I think I've told JPJ about this, but if you have auto-suggest turned on in google, start typing "as canadian as."
46: To a degree it's pointless categorization, but there is something real here. Massachusetts is different from Mississippi in a real way, but they're each similar with their neighbors. We talk about "The South" as if it's a real thing while recognizing there are multiple distinct Southern cultures. Sure, trying to completely enumerate it and come up with the definite list of mutually-exclusive polities is silly, but they're useful shorthand.
I did think while reading that Garreau didn't do enough to show continuity across national borders.
I mean, sure, obviously people need to make generalizations and there are similarities and differences between and among in different regions that are interesting. I just don't like the whole "nations" concept because it reifies things in a ridiculous way. In some ways New England is very different than the South; in other, significant way rural Maine and rural Alabama have more in common with each other than either do with Boston or Atlanta, etc., etc., and you can play this game with geography forever.
And in a lot of ways the Canada example makes the point. All of these "regions" known as "Canada" can be grouped together in some ways BECAUSE THEY ARE A FUCKING COUNTRY CALLED FUCKING CANADA FUCK YOU FAKE GEOGRAPHERS IT'S A BULLSHITTY FAKE SOPHISTICATION GUESS WHAT SHITFUCK THE SCOTCH-IRISH DON'T ACTUALLY EXIST.
Also, doesn't Canada have regionalism baked into its constitution? Like any major amendments require Ontario+Quebec+BC+some Maritimes+some Western provinces. I don't know of other countries that do that.
Regionalism is just another name for cheese curds.
THE SCOTCH-IRISH DON'T ACTUALLY EXIST
Scots-Irish, and I'd love to hear that argument, either in shouty form or not.
54: It's what they call the President of Russia in French.
Scotch-Irish is a particularly enthusiastically blended form of whisk(e)y.
55 -- there were certainly emigrants from Ulster, and from the English borderlands, to America. Many of these people settled in Appalachia. That much is true. There is also a distinctive Appalachian culture -- also true, which likely developed in part from the origins of these people and in large part from the conditions in which they found themselves. What's bullshit is the idea of some distinct linked-to-Ulster or someplace else "Scots-Irish" culture with distinctive traits that can be used to explain much of anything.
Err, I thought Fischer was super-detailed about this? He showed this via specific cultural practices--songs, farming practices, marriage rites, ways families housed together--that were found in both Appalachia and in Presbyterian communities in Ulster and the Scottish Borders but not as much in the rest of England, and well as in other demographic trends like the increased rates of violence found in both places. And consider that this group still identifies with a unique ethnic identity in the census, except they call it "American."
He was writing about the colonial period (or, at least his evidence was from that period). The problem isn't so much the argument that people from different regions in England brought their regionalisms with them to America when they came here, which almost has to be true, but the further argument, which is mostly implied in Fisher's book but is the whole premise of it, that these regionalisms were the key to some kind of distinct quasi-ethnic identity that continues into the present. And that much is IMO bullshit -- there's certainly a white Appalachian identity, but the notion that there is some underlying fighty scots-irish culture that meaningfully drives contemporary American culture is crap.
This can be argued too far, but it's not nothing: Appalachia (and the places to the southwest of there, the Ozarks and Texas, that were partially settled from there) has high rates of violence. Appalachian settlers had high rates of violence. Some other rural former frontier regions have lower levels of violence so that's insufficient as an explanation. I don't see why you wouldn't link those, or at least use that as the null hypothesis--certainly the state of things here has to allow for the continuity of that attribute, but I think if you're trying to disprove it you have to show that it's happening now for different reasons.
The "meaningfully drives contemporary American culture" thing is stronger than saying that there exist people who are largely descended from a certain region, have cultural traits associated with that region, and practice religions associated with that region. I'm not going against those goalposts.
I think this is going to turn into an uninteresting argument where we focus on degree instead of kind, so I'm willing to concede the point.
For what it's worth, I'm descended in part from Scots-Irish who migrated later and never settled in Appalachia. I recognized some of what Fischer described in my father's family.
How does 59 manage a diacritical above a K?
64: I did that via copy/pasting from Wikipedia, but there are accent characters in Unicode that let you put pretty much any accent mark overlaid on any other character. You can use them to do horrible things that break rendering engines.
Also worth noting that there's been historically very little in-migration to Appalachia, which is one of the reasons to credit cultural continuity. Saying that Manhattan is the way it is because of the Dutch is dubious*, but that's because there's been many, many layers of subsequent influence and inmigration. But that doesn't really apply to Appalachia.
*I mean, obviously there are specific things the Dutch did that set the groundwork, from physical settlement patterns to, I dunno, esoteric contractual law or something, but beyond a general, self-sustaining ethos of cosmopolitan commercialism, I don't think you can say that Manhattan is a distinctly Dutch place.
67.last you ever go with friends for lunch there?
There is no lunch in Appalachia. Only breakfast, dinner, and supper.
Interesting. I put it over the k via copy/pasting a k-with-diaresis. I'm viewing it in Safari and it looks right; I checked on Chrome and it also does there, although the diaresis is higher. Something's wrong on yours systems.
Huh. It shows up over the y for me in both Chrome and Firefox.
But when I check in Safari on my phone it's over the k. I blame Steve Jobs.
I'm not even sure that 67 is right. I'd have to look up numbers, but there was tons of German immigration to the Appalachian region, plus all the Italians or Eastern European immigrants who came to work in the mines starting in the late 19th Century, plus I'm sure some other stuff. I mean I'd certainly believe that there was less in-migration to Appalachia than lots of other American regions, but that's not the same thing as little to none.
It's over the k in my android phone. Huh.
So, if I copy/paste into Word, it's over the K also.
It seemed reasonable to me that immigrants, particularly non-English-speaking, would take their ques from and assimilate to the existing culture where they settled. If most Americans they met had these characteristics, however foreign to them, they and particularly their children would adopt them as norms.
So for instance, despite his name showing German ancestry, Dale Earnhardt is the epitome of these characteristics.
So for instance, despite his name showing German ancestry, Dale Earnhardt is the epitome of these characteristics.
Driving very, very fast is a German characteristic.
67: I'm not saying this means anything at all, and it probably doesn't. But the one time I've been in Amsterdam, I found it very noticeable that people were behaving perfectly normally. England's a foreign country, Italy's a foreign country, most of America is pretty weird, but Amsterdam felt like home in terms of people's body language and public behavior, strikingly enough that I found myself theorizing that NYC actually still is meaningfully Dutch somehow.
But this is based on one short visit, and it's equally possible that I was just being silly.
But this is based on one short visit, and it's equally possible that I was just being silly stoned.
I felt that everyone in not-London England was more or less perfectly normal except for talking funny. I didn't spend enough time in London to learn about that and I've never been to Amsterdam.
Some of the slower ones had moss growing on them, but it was really rainy on the coast.
I met a Londoner at a holiday party last night. He's a charming, older doctor who married an American 40+ years ago and re-located here. We hit it off and chatted through most of the party. His (joking) departing advice to me: "Behave. Don't cry in public. And never strike a child, except in anger."
I think that's the kind of thing you can get away with saying only if you're a charming old British chap.
67 and 80: also, NYC tolerates a greater range of incomes than New England in some ways. The Puritans, unlike the Dutch, excluded the very rich and the very poor.