David Hackett Fischer is a historian who wrote a Pulitzer prize winning book about George Washington and is probably best known for his provocative 1989 book Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America
I wonder where Thomas Sowell's thesis regarding "black rednecks" fits in. I see his take as basically what is considered American "black culture" today was inherited from Southern cracker culture, which was a product of the Scots/Irish highlanders who settled in the South.
It's such a sad commentary that, simultaneously, Fischer "focuses almost exclusively on positive elements of African and American black life" and that the resulting book is "doomed as a driver of public discussion" for being implicitly non-woke.
On the connections between African and African-American culture, the highly influential late Yale art historian Robert Farris Thompson has much to say. Of course, it mostly conforms to the "exclusively celebratory" rules of contemporary discourse. But still enlightening.
I guess Fischer might have calibrated this thing just the right amount to be irrelevant to the wider culture. Too counter-narrative to be praiseworthy, too on-narrative to be controversial.
But thanks for the link to Sailer's review -- a good complement to Aaron's. We have to think that Fischer eventually realized his project was something of a failure (to the degree he's even still fully in control of the project at 86), but there are still interesting tales and characters to pull out of it. A lot of historians engage in this task of forcing or stretching facts to fit their hypothesis even after that hypothesis is clearly busted, so I don't think this error is anything unique or new.
Sailer himself does some forcing and stretching when he applies the left-right frame to Puritans vs. Cavaliers -- it's one thing to speculate that contemporary leftism is an offshoot of Puritanism, but quite another to insist that the 17th c. Puritans WERE leftists, and to convey anything meaningful to a 21st c. audience by saying so.
Yes, that an author Fischer's stature feels compelled to make a patently absurd argument like "Fulani skill with cows was a major influence on Western cowboy culture" is an embarrassing commentary on the state of our historical discourse. Colin Woodard mentions that section as well in his review.
According to Woodard, Fischer also claims that, "Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman modeled themselves on the enlightened aristocratic gentlemen who ruled [the Chesapeake]." Woodard accurately points out this isn't true, but still gives way too much credit to Tubman as a deep thinker and philosopher. James McPherson took apart the myth surrounding Tubman in "This Mighty Scourge" which was published in 2007. Yet the regime demands these myths and sometimes outright lies about our history continue to be taught. Continuing to promote these false claims that blacks made far greater contributions to modern American life than what they are given credit for and have been cheated by white racists obviously fuels resentment, unreasonable demands and violence among people who already have lower than average impulse control.
For just one example, virtually no mainstream historian will even mildly criticize slave revolts no matter how brutal they were or how many innocent people were slaughtered in them. It is cartoonish analysis of white violence=bad, black violence=good. Our elites are showing no signs of being willing to tell truth on these matters for the overall good of society.
I wonder where Thomas Sowell's thesis regarding "black rednecks" fits in. I see his take as basically what is considered American "black culture" today was inherited from Southern cracker culture, which was a product of the Scots/Irish highlanders who settled in the South.
It's such a sad commentary that, simultaneously, Fischer "focuses almost exclusively on positive elements of African and American black life" and that the resulting book is "doomed as a driver of public discussion" for being implicitly non-woke.
Steve Sailer's review is also of interest: https://www.takimag.com/article/faded-roots/
On the connections between African and African-American culture, the highly influential late Yale art historian Robert Farris Thompson has much to say. Of course, it mostly conforms to the "exclusively celebratory" rules of contemporary discourse. But still enlightening.
I guess Fischer might have calibrated this thing just the right amount to be irrelevant to the wider culture. Too counter-narrative to be praiseworthy, too on-narrative to be controversial.
But thanks for the link to Sailer's review -- a good complement to Aaron's. We have to think that Fischer eventually realized his project was something of a failure (to the degree he's even still fully in control of the project at 86), but there are still interesting tales and characters to pull out of it. A lot of historians engage in this task of forcing or stretching facts to fit their hypothesis even after that hypothesis is clearly busted, so I don't think this error is anything unique or new.
Sailer himself does some forcing and stretching when he applies the left-right frame to Puritans vs. Cavaliers -- it's one thing to speculate that contemporary leftism is an offshoot of Puritanism, but quite another to insist that the 17th c. Puritans WERE leftists, and to convey anything meaningful to a 21st c. audience by saying so.
Yes, that an author Fischer's stature feels compelled to make a patently absurd argument like "Fulani skill with cows was a major influence on Western cowboy culture" is an embarrassing commentary on the state of our historical discourse. Colin Woodard mentions that section as well in his review.
According to Woodard, Fischer also claims that, "Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman modeled themselves on the enlightened aristocratic gentlemen who ruled [the Chesapeake]." Woodard accurately points out this isn't true, but still gives way too much credit to Tubman as a deep thinker and philosopher. James McPherson took apart the myth surrounding Tubman in "This Mighty Scourge" which was published in 2007. Yet the regime demands these myths and sometimes outright lies about our history continue to be taught. Continuing to promote these false claims that blacks made far greater contributions to modern American life than what they are given credit for and have been cheated by white racists obviously fuels resentment, unreasonable demands and violence among people who already have lower than average impulse control.
For just one example, virtually no mainstream historian will even mildly criticize slave revolts no matter how brutal they were or how many innocent people were slaughtered in them. It is cartoonish analysis of white violence=bad, black violence=good. Our elites are showing no signs of being willing to tell truth on these matters for the overall good of society.