Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "GATE CITY IS more than four hundred miles from Arlington, down the long spine of mountains that marks Virginia's western border..." (more)
Key Phrases: rough wooing, mountain settlements, World War, New England, Ulster Scots (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Former navy secretary Webb (Fields of Fire; etc.) wants not only to offer a history of the Scots-Irish but to redeem them from their redneck, hillbilly stereotype and place them at the center of American history and culture. As Webb relates, the Scots-Irish first emigrated to the U.S., 200,000 to 400,000 strong, in four waves during the 18th century, settling primarily in Appalachia before spreading west and south. Webb's thesis is that the Scots-Irish, with their rugged individualism, warrior culture built on extended familial groups (the "kind of people who would die in place rather than retreat") and an instinctive mistrust of authority, created an American culture that mirrors these traits. Webb has a genuine flair for describing the battles the Scots-Irish fought during their history, but his analysis of their role in America's social and political history is, ironically for someone trying to crush stereotypes, fixated on what he sees, in almost Manichaean terms, as a class conflict between the Scots-Irish and America's "paternalistic Ivy League-centered, media-connected, politically correct power centers." He even excuses resistance to the "Northern-dominated" Civil Rights movement. Another glaring weakness is the virtual absence of women from the sociological narrative. Webb interweaves his own Scots-Irish family history throughout the book with some success, but by and large his writing and analysis are overwhelmed by romanticism.
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* In telling the story of the Scots-Irish in America as a robust and passionate tale, novelist Webb writes straightforward, no-nonsense, readable history that clips right along while it is also very personal and highly idiosyncratic about a people who, he claims, are largely invisible--taken for granted--to the general public and who, seldom thinking of themselves in ethnic identity terms, mostly don't know their culture. Webb maintains that Scots-Irish attitudes form the bedrock of American society, especially among the working class. Scots-Irish culture has produced American presidents from Andrew Jackson to Bill Clinton, soldiers from Ulysses S. Grant to George Patton, pioneers, preachers, and others whose most common characteristics may be described as fierce individualism, persistent egalitarianism, and a strong sense of personal honor. Perhaps the most visible examples of broad and ongoing Scots-Irish legacy are the fundamentalist Christianity (a potent combination of Scottish Calvinism and headstrong populism) of America's Bible Belt and country music. Webb begins the Scots-Irish saga in Scotland, where, he says, the Scots-Irish character was formed, moves on to the Ulster Scots of what is now Northern Ireland, and follows them to the Appalachians and points beyond as well as through the American Revolution, the Civil War, and up to the present day. Popular history at its finest. June Sawyers
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Broadway; Book Club edition (October 5, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767916883
• ISBN-13: 978-0767916882
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (150 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #70,932 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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111 of 117 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars History of the Scots-Irish, September 9, 2005

By	Leonard J. Wilson (VA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Born Fighting by James Webb is the history of the Scots-Irish over the last 2000 years. A few highlights:

1. Scotland was effectively created by the Roman Empire when Hadrian's Wall was built across Britain at the approximate location of the current border between England and Scotland. Rome controlled Britain south of the wall and the native Celtic tribes controlled the north. (Rome also effectively created the modern boundary between France and Germany when Caesar conquered Gaul but stopped at the Rhine.)

2. After the Norman Conquest, English kings attempted repeatedly to subdue the Scots and extend their rule to all of Britain. The victories of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce maintained Scottish independence through the rein of Elizabeth I. Upon her death, the throne passed to James I of the House of Stuart who already ruled Scotland as James VI. One could almost say that Scotland thereby absorbed England, but the relative population sizes of the two countries gave England the upper hand almost from the beginning.

3. In the meantime, the Protestant Reformation had been underway in northern Europe, leaving Scotland strongly protestant (Presbyterian), England more mildly protestant (Anglican), and Ireland still Roman Catholic. To bring Ireland into the protestant fold and increase its loyalty to the British Crown, James I established the Ulster Plantation and encouraged protestant Scots to settle in Ulster starting in about 1610. These settlers from Scotland to Ireland became the Scots-Irish (or Scotch-Irish).

4. In the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the English Parliament deposed King James II principally because he attempted to reestablish a Catholic monarchy. The deposed king, with French (Catholic) aid landed in Ireland, rallied the Catholic Irish in southern Ireland and attacked the protestant settlers in Ulster. James was again defeated and exiled to France.

5. Meanwhile, various Test Acts had been enacted by the English Parliament and Crown that established the Anglican Church as the official Church of England and excluded non-Anglican Protestants, primarily Presbyterians and Puritans, from public office. A particularly harsh version was enacted in 1703 and led to the heavy migration of Scots-Irish from Ulster to America throughout the 1700s. They settled primarily in the Appalachian highlands, starting in Pennsylvania and migrating southwest to Virginia, the Carolinas, Kentucky, Tennessee and beyond. In numbers, the Scots-Irish far exceed the other groups of British settlers described in David Hackett Fischer's Albion's Seed: the New England Puritans from East Anglia, the Virginia Cavaliers from the south and West of England, and the Pennsylvania Quakers from the Midlands.

6. The Scots-Irish were characterized by poverty, family ties that extended both linearly across generations and collaterally to many degrees of cousins, strongly protestant beliefs, independence, distrust of governments in general, and a readiness to fight both individually as part of a local militia. Although the Scots-Irish Presbyterians shared a faith based on Calvinism with the Puritans of East Anglia and New England, there appears to have been little love lost between these groups.

7. The Scots-Irish provided the bulk of the Confederate Army although few held any slaves. During the decades following the Civil War, their poverty was worse than before the war, reaching a nadir during the Great Depression of the 1930s. This poverty prompted another mass migration to other parts of America which was accelerated by the mobilization for World War II. As a consequence, the Scots-Irish have been distributed through most of America, except perhaps New England. Their numbers and characteristics, especially their willingness to accept and absorb spouses from other ethnic groups into their extended families, have made the Scots-Irish folkways a key part of the American character.

So, is this a recommendation of Born Fighting to others? Yes, but a conditional recommendation. First, one should read David Hackett Fischer's Albion's Seed (see my review) which describes and contrasts the four British groups, including the Scots-Irish, that settled America. Fischer's book is better written, broader in scope, more objective, and based on real scholarship. In contrast, Born Fighting is repetitive, focused on one ethnic group alone (making conflicts with others harder to understand), strongly Scots-Irish partisan rather than objective, and draws much of its best material from other modern authors, including extensive quotes from Fischer's book and Churchill's Birth of Britain. Still, Born Fighting was worth reading and gave me new insights, especially on the history of the Scots-Irish before their migration to America. For the record, my heritage is largely Scots-Irish.

Here are two additional suggestions. (1) David Hackett Fischer's Bound Away (see my review) which describes the migrations of Scots-Irish and others to, within and from Virginia. This book repeats some of the content of Albion's Seed but also presents new material on the migrations within and from Virginia. (2) Kevin Phillips' The Cousins' Wars which traces the recurring conflicts between the Puritans of East Anglia and New England and the Anglican Aristocracy of South and West England and the American coastal south through the English Civil War, American Revolution, and American Civil War. This book also draws heavily on Albion's Seed but adds much detail on the three wars that are its central focus. However, it appears to have a mild bias to the Puritan side.

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Born Fighting : How the Scots-Irish Shaped America, January 31, 2005

By	John C. Duff "John C. Duff" (Olney, MD) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I had to log on and write a review of James Webb's brilliant and wonderful book " Born Fighting : How the Scots-Irish Shaped America." I bought the book in November, and after skimming through it and reading the first two chapters, I immediately ordered a copy for my father as a Christmas present. After finishing it, he told me it was the greatest present he had ever received, and that many of Webb's passages brought tears to his eyes. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in American History, and for those millions of Scots-Irish Americans unaware of their heritage this is a must-read.

In "Born Fighting" author James Webb chronicles the millennial struggle of the Scots-Irish people from fighting to preserve their independence against the Romans and the English, through their migration to Ireland, then to the hardscrabble Appalachian frontier and beyond. Webb describes how the values of these fiercely independent, determined and impoverished people pervaded the society and culture of America, and how their influence is reflected in such diverse institutions as NASCAR auto racing, country music, the evangelical movement, the U.S. Armed Forces, and American Democracy itself.

Weaving distant history with personal family history, Webb details the struggle of these proud, impoverished people through their oppression by and resistance to the Romans, the English, the Irish Catholics, the Anglo-American pseudo-aristocracy of the Colonies, and the latter's successors, the so-called "Eastern Establishment." Through it all, the Scots-Irish survive oppression, scorn, war and poverty by drawing on their bottom-up, rather than top down social and political structure, and their collective fighting spirit to triumph. Webb's wonderful personal stories of his own family history cannot help but resonate with those Scots-Irish of today with similar backgrounds and experiences. It certainly did with me.

Until I read this book, like many of the millions of Americans of Scots-Irish descent, I never knew I had an ethnic heritage. I am now glad to know that not only do I have one, it is a proud one and storied one. I owe a debt of gratitude to Webb for imparting this to me through this magnificent book.

My father used to tell us as children that we were "Scotch-Irish." I didn't know what that meant at all until I took European History in high school. As an adult, I did some genealogical research on my family, gleaning what seemed to me to be loosely connected facts from church and census records. "Born Fighting" was invaluable in providing some context to what little I was able to learn.

Along with my aunt, I traced my family history to the mid-1700s in western Virginia, through my Great-Great Grandfather who enlisted in the Confederate Army in Charlottesville, VA on the day after First Manassas. He served in the 57th Virginia Infantry, part of Gen. Pickett's division at Gettysburg that was virtually wiped out on the third and decisive day of that bloody battle. My aunt found a picture of him at the Gettysburg Battlefield Visitors Center in his uniform, of which I have a copy.

My father, the son of a five-and-ten-cent store manager in the Depression-era South became the first of our Scots-Irish family to graduate high school. If that wasn't enough his high school grades got him into an Ivy League school, borrowing, washing dishes, waiting tables, and tending bar to pay his tuition and earn his degree. His sacrifice and hard work smoothed the road for his four children, two of whom are lawyers, one an economist, and the other a mathematics teacher. After reading this book, my father told me he had always been ashamed of his modest "white trash" or "redneck" background, but having read this book he could finally be proud of who he is and where he came from.

I have a 4 year old son and I am going to give him a copy of this wonderful account of our ancestors as soon as he is old enough to appreciate it. I want him to know what I now know about the hardships and difficulties of our ancestors and how they got us to where we are now. Their story has made me appreciate how far we have come.

To Mr. Webb, I say thank you for telling the story of our colorful and prominent ethnic heritage, and the role our forebears played in the evolution of our great republic.

66 of 77 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Scots-Irish are "People of Passion", October 16, 2004

By	Appalachian Classroom Teacher (Southern Highlands - USA) - See all my reviews

As my above moniker indicates, I teach school in Appalachia. I am also Scotch-Irish. Or, as the author of this book and other people say, "Scots-Irish." My ancestors settled in the Southern Highlands of Appalachia in the 1700s. This is where I was born and reared. I attended a university in the Northeast and then returned to Appalachia to teach, and here I will remain. The people about whom James Webb writes are "my people." I can relate to them and I love them deeply.

Webb refers to Scots-Irish as one of the most powerful cultural forces shaping America, producing great Presidents, soldiers, inventors, actors, and writers. He goes on to say that they have "remained invisible." I understand what he means with the word "invisible," but Scots-Irish are far from invisible in the legacy they have left for others to emulate.

Carl Mays, in his PEOPLE OF PASSION book, writes about the early Scots-Irish of the Southern Highlands as "...good-hearted people with faith in God, nature, themselves, and their neighbors." In this book, which makes a good parallel companion and somewhat of a contrast with Webb's book, Mays goes on to share 48 stories that cover the years from 1765-1965 that "demonstrate the principles, the spirit, and the character of the people upon which our nation has been built."

Unlike Webb's book, PEOPLE OF PASSION gives more credit to the Scots-Irish for working together and with others to help establish a backbone in the Southern Highlands. Mays also presents the stories of women who were extremely important to the individual families, communities, and region. I fault Webb for lacking in these two areas.

I also fault Webb for his over-emphasis on the "Fighting Scots-Irish," but, of course, this does reflect the name of the book. In the early days of our country, everyone had to "fight," so to speak. But Scots-Irish helped forge our country with much more than guns and knives. For example, as Mays writes in PEOPLE OF PASSION, John Ross, who was 7/8 Scots-Irish, 1/8 Cherokee, a graduate of private schools and college, was the main Cherokee chief for almost 40 years. His life shoots down Webb's assertion that Scots-Irish have been uneducated and imperialistic.

Is Webb's book worth reading and should it be recommended to others? Yes it should. For anyone interested in Scots-Irish or in the shaping of America, this book contains some valuable material. But it should be read with other books that cover the same subject. These books would include James Leyburn's SCOTCH-IRISH: A SOCIAL HISTORY; Nora Chadwick's THE CELTS, and THE DRUIDS; Bill Kennedy's FAITH AND FREEDOM: THE SCOTS-IRISH IN AMERICA.