David Hackett FischerReseñas

While a fascinating read, I found it to be more about the Battles of Lexington and Concord and General Gage more than about Revere. I think that there is not enough information about Revere for an entire book, so the battles were portrayed in depth, although Revere did not fight in either. Just a great period piece of history. Lots about Gage, Sam Adams, John Hancock, Dr. Church, Dr. Warren, etc. Would recommend if you want a history of what lead up to the Battles of Lexington and Concord and the personalities involved. ETA: Also a great job of the author contrasting the actual event with Longfellow's The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.
463 pages½

Washington's Crossing focuses in on what the author believes is the key turning point in the Revolutionary War. We start in 1776, after Lexington & Concord, and follow the fate of the Continental Army as they are routed in New York, retreat through New Jersey in the Fall, and escape across the Delaware to Pennsylvania. At this point, things look bleak for the rebels, and Washington has to find a way to take the initiative. So he orders a daring Christmas night re-crossing of the Delaware and surprise of the Hessian garrison in Trenton. Then we're taken through the next week, including more Delaware crossings and the Battle of Princeton.

The Americans were undermanned and undertrained, but had some advantages too- a committed citizenry, New Jersey residents angry about British military rule, and the vast spaces of American, impossible to fully garrison, along with some lucky breaks with the weather. But fundamentally, George Washington was a highly effective leader and an excellent military strategist and tactician, who knew how to spot an opportunity and seize it.

Good history, well written, and fun.

biography.Very Good

a must read for anyone interested in american history

Originally published in 1970.

5/25/2019 2ND READING ATTEMPT - With my second attempt, I made it to chapter 6 of this book for my 52 Bookmark Reading Challenge prompt #24/52 - "Book you never finished"...Still never finished!

It was highly recommended by Dr. Shane Bernard, historian on Avery Island, Louisiana. He claimed it was the most valuable book he's ever read. Great! This was exactly THE kind of book I had been looking for to help me determine a good history book (the truth) verses a bad one (propaganda), since we are having all these problems with the cancel culture and woke leftists trying to cancel out and change history. But, I need to search for another by a different author who writes in a language I can actually understand. On page 285, the author writes regarding a fallacy of many historians, a form of error is…”committed by scholars who never use a little word when a big one will do.” Well, this author could learn from his own writing. You need a dictionary handy just to decipher what it is he’s even talking about. But if you are a scholar, I'm sure you would actually rate this as top-notch. The 1-star is due to my own inadequacy for understanding, not for the quality of this book.

7/22/2018 - 1ST READING ATTEMPT - What the hell did I just read? You seriously need a doctorates degree to read and understand this book! I read through the first chapter a month ago and found it to be way over my head. So I put it down. I actually had it ready to go in the Goodwill box but just couldn't see it go just yet.

I did learn something substantial in that first chapter: That all historians write about history in their own biases and beliefs. Good or bad, right or wrong, their job is to present history to their readers, preferably backing up their writing with empirical proofs, and not their point of views. It is subjective and individual. Wow! I never even thought of it like that before. I've always just simply read and accepted every word in every history book as fact.

Because of this insight, I decided to go ahead slowly and painstakingly try to read through it again and try to gleen at least one important piece of information from each chapter in hopes of learning how to critically read history books, news reports or any other nonfiction piece of work, and to determine if what I'm reading can be a "trusted" source. I found that I'm not smart enough to determine a truth from a lie. But, I did at least learn a little bit about how historians write and the many fallacies that could make or break their reputation as great historians. I was only able to read through half of chapter 6 before totally giving it up for good because I literally couldn't understand one single word they were writing about. It's back in the Goodwill box for the next brilliant mind...

"Albion 19s Seed" by David Hackett Fischer is a terrific history of the various groups of British people who settled in the colonies that later became the United States. Fischer writes clearly, interestingly and with a balance between three elements of historical analysis: blending the stories of the famous with those of the obscure and with a use of statistics that is unexpectedly lively 14a feat in itself. (Too many historians see these three elements as being in competition and use them singly or with overemphasis on one of them over the others.)

Fischer 19s thesis is this: each colony that made up British America was settled by people who tended to come from particular regions of Britain. For example, the characteristically 1Cr 1D dropping New Englanders from whom I myself spring, tended to come from the counties in the eastern part of England where, to this day, people tend to drop their 1Cr 1Ds in much the same way. This is not to say that there were not exceptions to this narrow origin. The area around Rowley, Massachusetts, was settled by people whose origins in England were a bit further north from those of the people who tended to settle the rest of Massachusetts. Indeed, while the majority of those who initially settled the colony were either clergymen, craftsmen, farmers, or fishermen according to their trades in eastern England, the people who settled in Rowley had been millers and, unsurprisingly, given that fact, built the first mills in New England.

My own ancestry reflects further exceptions: one of my ancestors was from southeastern England, a little further south of the majority of Massachusetts Bay colonists, and another direct ancestor came from a suburb of London. However, religion, more than geography, united the colonists of Massachusetts. Most of them were Puritans, and even the settlers of Rowley had been members of a Puritan church in a part of England where Puritans had been less common than in the part of East Anglia where most of the New England colonists came from. Similarly, my own ancestors, though not from the expected region of England, show up in colonial records as members in good standing of the Congregational church that developed out of the Puritan rule. (Although one of my second generation New England ancestors was punished for 1Cconsorting with Baptists. 1D)

Similarly, each other colony 19s history is that of people whose majority tended to come from certain counties in Britain, certain classes of the social order, and certain religions. Virginia, where I now dwell, was settled by people from the southwestern counties of England, both gentlemen (or cavaliers, as they were called) and, eventually, the less than desirable class, including pickpockets and prostitutes. Most of the gentlemen were second sons who did not expect to inherit anything from their wealthy fathers who were entitled and expected under British law to leave their estates entirety to their eldest sons. Nominally adherents of the Church of England (nowadays called Episcopal in the United States), the settlers of Virginia tended to be far less religious than the colonists in Massachusetts who arrived with the intention of establishing a spiritual utopia. However, to all of these people, the New World promised great danger but also a chance of success and relative liberty that was almost impossible back in England.

In each colony, different groups of people arrived in successive waves, each with a different point of arrival in terms both of geography and calendar date. The older settlers often looked down on the newcomers but to varying degrees, and newcomers who had to pass through the cities and towns of earlier settlers tended to continue on to new territories that were as yet less settled. So it was that the last group of settlers to arrive before the American Revolution 14the people from northern England, southern Scotland, and northern Ireland, whom Fischer calls 1CBorderers 1D because they came from border areas within the British Isles 14were regarded as very low indeed by the established American colonists. These newcomers pushed west to the frontiers of several states, including Pennsylvania, where they later participated in the Whiskey Rebellion that President George Washington personally put down at the head of the nation 19s newly minted professional army. Of course, Washington had a personal bone to pick with Borderers because they often squatted on lands that were already legally claimed by wealthy landowners including Washington himself.

This is a very long book. It might please most American readers to read those chapters that deal with their own ancestors, if they are of English or Scots ancestry, or with the region where they happen to live if they are Easterners. But other readers might enjoy this book, too, if they are interested enough in the nitty-gritty of American history to enjoy a well written account of how colonial America was settled by different groups with different backgrounds and intentions, and how these differences determined the various characters of the colonies and perhaps contributed to the diversity of temperament and ethos enjoyed today by the different states that these colonies became.

This book is very well researched and provides a comprehensive history of the battles of Lexington and Concord as well as Paul Revere's significant involvement in each. Helpfully, the book also addresses the periods just before and after these events for context.

To his credit, the author avoids any ideology and provides an objective account which has become more difficult to find these days.

Nonetheless, I found the book sometimes a bit tedious despite my interest in this era. Perhaps it was the result of such an in-depth analysis- at times the narrative simply did not flow well and could stagnate.½

this is an absolutely extraordinary piece of research and compilation. truly. the amount of information in these pages, and the work that had to go into learning it all and putting it all together, is simply astounding. i'm not at all sure about some of the conclusions he draws and i'm sure that some slaves really did have an okay life and their masters weren't the very worst they could possibly be, but also they were still slaves and he didn't always talk about the situation as if it was one of bondage. i mean he also did, most of the time, and it's fair to point out where slaves were happy and prosperous. but it didn't all sit quite right with me.

also, there is so much information here. i think i ended up listening to most of this a few times because it was so hard for me to stay focused on it. it's so dry and parts are full of small lists of numbers, so my mind wandered. but the fullness and depth of the information gathered here really is so impressive. and his point, that african culture and ideas made their way into american life - and contributed to making the america that we know today - and varied both by geography of the colonies and geography of where the slaves came from, is an important piece of historical data that should be talked about more often.

"Human bondage was a brutal business everywhere but the human spirit of individual slaves survived and even flourished, especially when they were able to form families and where clusters of Africans came together."

"The expense of keeping a European servant for one year was greater than the purchase of an African slave for life."

I had been meaning to read this through for years and I finally made it. Nearly 1000 pages of detailed, documented and entertaining history. Surprisingly easy to read, and exceptionally eye opening. If you want to understand the United States today, read this book about it's beginnings. My only minor ding is that the conclusion got a bit redundant, I have a feeling the author wrote it that way because he felt lots of folks would skip to it rather than wade into the depths. Take the wade - it's worth it.½

Longer review coming. Capsule review right now since I'm about 3 steps from the door.

As other mentions, a lack of a narrative makes this more a reference than a book to be read straight through, but worth doing just that so you know what's in it. And the richness and breadth of that information does not disappoint. Worth read for the fascinating analysis of US presidential elections at the end viewed through the regional cultural lens alone.

If you like history or culture or want to understand the roots of todays political landscape -- both literal and figurative -- read this.

If this book had any sort of narrative I would have given it a 5.

This book begins to restore Paul Revere to the status of a American icon/ hero.

Great ending that shows how someone’s overall opinion of what they are writing about dictates their final work no matter the inaccuracies.

Some people should be ashamed to call themselves historians. That includes the Boston Globe who wrote a editorial with zero evidence to back up their claims in 1968. Thus a new generation was taught inaccuracies. The truth is the truth no matter what you want it to be.

I just finished reading Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer. This book was definitely worthwhile. I am giving it "Five Stars." I confess to reading it fast, slower than a skim but much faster than I usually read a book. The reason is that much of the material concerning the famous crossing of the Delaware that stormy Christmas night and the surprise attack on the British and the Hessians at Trentown (now Trenton, New Jersey) was described in detail in Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow and 1776 by David McCullough, which I previously read.

A major distinction is that Chernow and McCullough are primarily writers, whereas Fischer is primarily a professor.

Fischer posits convincingly that the revival of the Revolution, almost sundered in the loss of New York City during the summer and fall of 1776 started before the Crossing of the Delaware and the Battle of Trenton, and that revival made those victories possible. A brief excerpt from what I think was the most stirring chapter, "The Great Revival":

There is an old American folk tale about George Washington and the Crossing of the Delaware. It tells us that the new American republics nearly failed in the winter of 1776, that George Washington crossed the Delaware on Christmas night, and that his victory at 1renton revived the Revolution. All of this story is true, but it is not the whole truth. There was more to it. The great revival did not follow the battles of Trenton and Princeton, important as they were. It preceded them, and made those events possible (though not inevitable).
*****
This great revival grew from defeat, not from victory. The awakening was a response to a disaster. Doctor Benjamin Rush, who had a major role in the event, believed that this was the way a free republic would always work, and the American republic in particular. He thought it was a national habit of the American people (maybe all free people) not to deal with a difficult problem until it was nearly impossible.

That view of the best of America being brought forth by crisis is true to this day.

Another focus of Washington's Crossing is in part on the uniquely American system that Washington and Continental Congress helped pioneer of placing elected representatives in overall charge, but delegating to experts a major amount of discretion in how they discharge their duties. Washington was given overall charge of the conduct of the Revolutionary War, for example. Fischer takes this analogy further, to having boards of directors of corporation selecting operating officers, and Boards of Education selecting superintendents operating independently but under supervision.

He also retells the thrilling stories of Washington's flexible and then-unique war strategy of avoiding pitched battles, but making the British and Hessians die the proverbial "death of a thousand cuts" though he does not use that phrase.

One quibble; I was constantly looking up words. One was "celerity" which turns out to mean "rapidity of motion." Another was "anabasis" which means "a military advance." And another jarring reference was his reference to "the Jamestown and Sagadahoc Colonies of 1607." The latter was a short-lived colony in Maine. This book may be more for history buffs, but it makes great reading.

David Hackett Fischer is a fine, old-school, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian. Heretofore, his most influential work (Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America) focused on the folkways of the English/British in colonial America and their influence on the history of the British colonies and the United States. This book takes a similar form for African folkways and influence in what would become the United States. It is well-researched, well-written, engaging, and will be influential. And, it is a perfect scholarly, historical antidote to the politico-economo-marxian twaddle of the 1619 Project. For Fischer, unlike Hannah-Jones and her ilk, African Americans were not merely put upon victims and America is not a rights-less, dictatorial, racialist, capitalist hellscape. Africans, Fischer notes, contributed to from the beginning to what makes America America, strived and survived despite slavery and racism, and forced America to live up to its values and promises. Reading each book in succession will highlight the difference. As such, this book deserves, nay demands, to be read by every professor or teacher of U.S. history, every political pundit, every CRTer, and every person interested in American history. It is that good and I foresee it winning numerous awards.

Fischer splits his book into three major regions: northern, southern, and frontiers; and then into nine smaller areas: New England; Hudson Valley; Delaware Valley in the North; Chesapeake Virginia and Maryland; Coastal Carolina, Georgia, and Florida; Louisiana, Mississippi, and the Gulf Coast in the South; and Western Frontiers; Maritime Frontiers; Southern Frontiers on the frontier. Such subdivisions allow Fischer to highlight the differences and similarities in each region over time. There are, of course, wide differences between slavery in the North, the Chesapeake, Carolina, and Louisiana. Much of the book also covers free blacks, which the subtitle of the books erases with "enslaved people."* The contributions that Black Americans made to the history of the United States of America is shown in its depth and breadth. And it's not just the brute physical force that slaves used to build up America, clear the land, create the wealth, though those things are important, vital contributions. It's the ideas and ideals, it's business, trade, exploration, building, boats, cattle ranching, farming, revolutions, striving, soldiering, rights, rights rights. Et cetera, ad infinitum. The ideas and ideals. It is a great book and an important story.

Fischer does have some missteps. In a book this wide, he is going to miss some research. The endnotes are great and sometimes expansive, but chock-full of more readings and more sources. I understand from a publishing standpoint why there is no separate bibliography or, at least, a selected bibliography. I should be happy they decided to include endnotes at all. Fischer's role as an old-fashioned liberal (I'm sure he's not a progressive 1619 type) shows through in his glaring omission about Gullah-Geechees in the present-day. He mentions (twice! pp. 454-455, 731) the Gullah roots of Michelle Obama's family. Okay. But he ignores the second black justice of the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas, whose first language was Gullah! A Gullah Supreme Court Justice! But, Thomas, bête noire of the liberalati, does not merit a mention by Fischer. Fischer also wildly misinterprets Frederick Douglass (as his most recent biographer, David Blight does too), saying (p. 747) that "Frederick Douglass believed that the diversity of American population was one of its greatest strengths."† He then quotes from Douglass:

"He wrote that the United States is 'the most conspicuous example of composite nationality in the world.... Our greatness and grandeur will be found in the faithful application of the principle of perfect civil equality to the people of all races and creeds.'"

Of course, Fischer's interpretation of Douglass is wrong. Douglass isn't praising racial (and credal) diversity—the skin-deep racialist DIVERSITY fetish that progressives idolize today—he is saying that despite the diversity of America's races and creeds, what makes a true American, what makes America great and grand is that all these diverse people composite themselves, compose themselves, together "in the faithful application of the principle of perfect civil equality to the people." THAT is what makes America great according to Douglass: treating everyone as an equal before the law despite diversity. Not, as Fischer and others would have it, treat all diversity as equal for the sake of diversity. E pluribus unum: "out of many, one"; NOT e pluribus pluribus: "out of many, many." My point, and Douglass's, and, I think, Fischer's before this misstep, is that all races, colors, creeds, whatever, we all—the "diversity" of us—all contributed and contribute something to America. But, I digress. Such minor foibles in no way distract from the book in any major way. It is a great and important book that deserves to be influential.

Images, maps, tables; endnotes, index. Well-written, engaging, excellent.

* Though the subtitle of the book uses the present-day 1619ish euphemism "enslaved persons" instead of "slaves" (look up the "euphemism treadmill"), Fischer uses "slaves" mostly.
† [Sic] if you think that that sentence is missing a "the" after the first "of,": ""Frederick Douglass believed that the diversity of [the] American population was one of its greatest strengths."

A couple years ago I read "American Nations" by Colin Woodard, about eleven persistent cultural blocks that constitute the United States of America. I loved it! There was an earlier work that informed Woodard's research and narrative—this book! Fischer's book is more targeted than Woodards; as the subtitle articulates, Fischer describes the ways in which the Puritans, the Cavaliers, the Quakers, and the Borderlanders each traveled from England to popularize iconic "American" (Brittish) cultures.

The book is a fascinating and thorough anthropological review, spanning speech, building, family, marriage, gender, sex, children, naming, age, death, religion, magic, learning, food, dress, sport, work, time, wealth, rank, social, order, power, and freedom.

There were a number of notable customs:

Puritans had a tradition, during courtship, of the "bundling sock" (a wrapping for the woman's lower half) which would allow a couple to sleep together, while ensuring their chastity.

For the Cavaliers, class was of utmost importance. There was zero social mobility, to the degree that government was composed of exclusively aristocracy for hundreds of years after the establishment of the Virginia Colony and surrounding areas.

In Quaker communities, during the two weeks following marriage, a couple received visitors. In the period which followed, they could either return the visit, confirming the relationship, or not return the visit, annulling the relationship.

In Borderlander country, there were two ways of getting married—either the woman was stolen by the man with her consent (but without the consent of her family), or without her consent (or the consent of the families). Many marriage games of this region play with this dynamic.

It is also fascinating to hear that so many words which we think of as iconically American are actually 17th Century Brittish.

The book also speaks about the influence of these cultures on politics. Almost every American president has descended from one of these four cultural blocks.

In summary, if you're interested in learning more about one reason why there is so much cultural heterogeneity in the United States, and more about the historic influence of the United Kingdom on these cultures, you will find this book a rewarding read. If you're looking for something a little shorter, broader, and more approachable, you might try Woodard's "American Nations" instead.

Good overview of the immediate actions of Lexington / Concord.

African-American contributions to American history are often pushed to the side and either given a lower priority when presented or segregated into its own area. These stories are often discussed during Black History Month, but then forgotten in the remaining eleven months of the year. In this book, a (white) Pulitzer Prize-winning author seeks to make a comprehensive, foundational case that enslaved people significantly enriched the cultural course of America – all before the Civil War. He does so in just under 1,000 pages with meticulous research and engaging prose.

Fischer admits that the story of African contributions varies regionally. Thus, he divides his narrative into nine regions, each with its own story, cultural influences, and main actors. Intellectual and spiritual New England fares differently than French/Spanish Louisiana, and Charleston’s Gullah culture varies from Pennsylvania’s Quakers. Organizing this story into regions allows Fischer to describe America in all its diversity. Then he describes how each region was made vitally better by African contributions, in a way that you could not imagine the history existing without these contributions.

Importantly, Fischer traces African-American cultural history back to Africa. Into the historical narrative, he integrates information about the names of enslaved people along with where boats transported from. Then he reconstructs the culture of the tribes and countries that these people came from. Thus, the prior lives of enslaved African are respected as they use these skills in a new setting. For example, African boat-making skills, formed especially by one African tribe, added to European boats in the Chesapeake Bay region of America. This technological innovation allowed the region to better conduct commerce among dispersed towns.

The tales of individual African-Americans are told here. Some were names I knew, but Fischer still introduced me to so many characters. Even though many whites sought to oppress blacks, enslaved Africans persisted to contribute their knowledge to construct America. Fischer proves that thesis exhaustively, with detail after detail, as he makes the case that American history and American ideals simply could not be without their African roots.

I’m not a historian, only a fan of history, so I cannot critically judge the quality of historiography in this book. I trust Fischer’s Pulitzer and distinguished academic credentials (a university professor at Brandeis) are fairly earned. Nonetheless, this book is one of the best histories I have ever read (and I’ve read hundreds). It breaks down an important, complex issue in detailed fashion, and then rebuilds it in a new way that advances the conversation. Words like brilliant and ingenious come to mind. I sincerely hope that Fischer’s take on race in America will achieve its potential in bringing a richer, more diverse, and more honest discussion of who we Americans are.

What I particularly enjoy about David Hackett Fischer’s books is that he is a practitioner of what I like to call “thick history”. On the one hand, he is a throwback to older generations of historians who wrote history as the acts of remarkable individuals – heroes. The Samuel de Champlain who emerges from the pages of this book is definitely that. At the same time, Fischer is informed by the broad range of developments in the practice and writing of history that emerged during the course of the twentieth century: the new social history, ethnography, economic history, and so on. Whatever his topic, he has an eye for the role of folkways, of speech patterns, and styles of architecture in recovering the past. On top of this, he is unabashed in his devotion to what some feel is an irreconcilable pair of opposites, “the study of the past on its own terms and at the same time [to] link it with the present” (p. 567).
The “dream” at the core of this book is Champlain’s humanistic vision of a world of tolerance and cooperation in the North American forest, as different as possible from the world of cruelty and religious intolerance into which he was born in France. An early assignment as an intelligence agent (= “spy”) in New Spain showed him one possible way of dealing with the native populations of the western hemisphere, and it appalled him. From his first voyage along the St. Lawrence River, his approach was unusual. He was vitally interested in the native population. While there were aspects of their lives that met with his disapproval, there was much more that he found to admire. In return, the natives experienced in Champlain a man unlike many of those they would encounter: a man who listened, who sought to understand, and one who kept his word. He was not the only one, but there were too few like him.
There is a sense of tragedy in the account, not only in the tale of a man whose devotion to his goal and his manifold skills in pursuing it enabled him to overcome many obstacles and reversals, both in the New World and back home in the Old. More than that, there is the sense of a missed opportunity, a sense that Champlain’s dream died with him. Yet this reader was left wondering what chance the dream had of fulfilment. Champlain avoided violence against the native inhabitants, certainly laudable, yet the diseases carried by the settlers he imported proved as deadly as any weapons he could have wielded. He had the fortune of dying of a stroke before epidemics ravaged the Huron nation. What were the real prospects for the achievement of his dream, even had his masters back home, Louis XIII and Richelieu, subscribed to it? Of course we cannot know. Nevertheless it remains incontestable that Champlain accomplished much; more important than the amount of his achievement or its permanence, however, was the way he achieved what he did. The age in which he lived would have made it easier for him to act very differently than he did – less honorably, less peaceably, less tolerantly. What I felt ennobling in reading this book was that, by doing things in the way he did, Champlain met with more success than those who employed more conventional methods.
Symptomatic of the thoroughness of Fischer’s approach is a section he wedges between the final chapter of his text and the sixteen appendices that follow, entitled Memories of Champlain. In it, he surveys the historiography of Champlain over four centuries. He shows a virtuostic mastery of the material; more than that, a magnanimous spirit that values the achievement of various schools and tendencies, even those with which he disagrees. In this way, Fischer is not unlike Champlain.
Highly recommended.

This book was very enlightening. Fischer traces four discrete waves of migration from the British Isles to the American colonies, each not only settling in a distinct area, but also originating in different areas. As a result, there was not one "British" colonial culture, but a variety of regional differences, largely reflecting the origins back home. These cultures manifested themselves in attitudes toward politics, family, sex, children, as well as styles of domestic architecture and religious affiliation. Even what we consider distinctive accents, such as New England twang or southern drawl, can largely be traced to regional dialects in the homeland. In addition to informing about colonial America, this book explains the origins of enduring conflicts in the US today. Highly recommended.

The historiographical section in the footnotes/ appendices is almost better than the actual narrative.

nonfiction (history--Revolutionary War). Great narrative reading. I still have trouble absorbing all of the battle/tactical information, but it is getting easier, and DHF does a nice job with incorporating the humanity of the soldiers and officers through inclusion of their personal letters and writings--I especially remember and appreciate the intro (about the famous painting and its history, as well as how it may or may not be inaccurate) or the concluding chapter.

Absolutely fascinating. The book traces customs and cultures from medieval Britain to modern America - showing how many things we take for granted rely on a contingent past. He makes a very strong argument that these British subcultures play a central role in everything from the way Americans of all ethnicities vote, eat, marry, worship and speak.

I know little about the American Revolution so was curious about this figure of Yankee reverence. The book is about the Battles of Lexington and Concord (April 19, 1775) the first armed conflict of the war, with Paul Revere as the central character holding the narrative thread. It is an effective approach because Revere played a big role, more than what he is best known for sounding the alarm on an early morning ride. This is a great introduction to the war and it has plenty of flavor of time and place.

Albion's Seed posits the existence of at least 11 distinct regional cultures in America and focuses on the first and largest 4, these were the founding cultures. They are New England, Virginia and the coastal south, the Mid Atlantic (PA, NJ, part of MD), and the "backcountry" which is basically Appalachia from PA southward. These regions were settled from different parts of England, respectively: East Anglia, southern and central England (Wessex and Mercia). the English midlands, and the border regions of England-Scotland-northern Ireland. Fischer contends the 17th and early 18th century established the cultural patterns in these regions that still exist today. He provides extensive evidence which is very convincing. I learned as much about English culture as American. Although published in 1989 it is just as relevant today, it's a classic. It will change how I view the US and UK forever, a perspective mind shift. It goes a long way to explaining our current problems and is a reminder that the US has always had internal conflict between cultures. Fischer says each culture has different ideas of what it means to be American, what freedom means. These competing cultures have been its strength over time even when they sometimes appear to be at each other's throats.½

I haven't read any other biographies of Champlain, perhaps the author is retreading well trod ground, but he does an admirable job of showing Champlain's outstanding, even heroic character: his long separation from wife and family, his devotion to king and country despite his religious differences, his compassion over the condition of the native people he encountered that could easily have turned into prejudice and intolerance. The author also puts Champlain into context with the other Frenchmen who have entered the historical record of North American exploration.

Terrific read on an historical person.