Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America

One of the best books you will ever read.Provides insight into history, geography, culture and what it means to be an American.Connects dots, establishes a framework for understand our current situation.

I picked this up from BookBub for an obscenely low price, having had it recommended to me by my friend Keith. I’m half Irish (“Potato Irish” not Scots-Irish), but my maternal grandmother came from County Antrim in North Ireland and believe you me she hated the English, so there’s some commonality, but I’m getting ahead of myself.Mr. Webb’s thesis is that is that many U.S. citizens are descendants of the Scots-Irish, which originated in Scotland, marked by intense tribal loyalty and a willingness to fight against big government of any sort. So to quote Mr. Webb: “(The) journey (of the Scots-Irish)…has been not simply one of hardship or disappointment, but of frequent and bitter conflict. These conflicts, from which they have never in two thousand years of history retreated, have followed a historically consistent cycle of, among other things, a values-based combativeness, an insistent egalitarianism, and a refusal to be dominated from above, no matter the cost.”The history of these people dates back to the times when the Celtic tribes resisted the power of the Roman Empire, and eventually centered in Scotland. The prominence and importance of William Wallace (“Braveheart”) and Robert the Bruce in the development of the Scottish people is certainly given credit. The joining of four intense and bellicose independent tribal peoples to fight the English seems a daunting task, but it was accomplished. Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai’s attempts to bring the country’s fourteen tribal groups together certainly seems apropos in this context.Many of the Scottish people immigrated to Ulster, in Northern Ireland, where they differentiated themselves from both the “potato Irish” Catholics and the English Protestants, becoming fundamentalist Calvinists, and fighting against religious persecution and England’s futile and violent attempts to bring this group into the fold. Those who left Ireland for America ended up not going to the large commerce centers but instead sought out the primitive and dangerous frontier of the remote Appalachians. Many of them made their way to the American South, also challenging both the Government and the frontier. Daniel Boone, among others, is set up as an example of such a person of Scotch-Irish lineage.Again due to their willingness to fight for individuality, Mr. Webb indicates that up to 40% of the American militia during the Revolutionary War was made up of Sots-Irish. Many were also soldiers for the South during the Civil War. And, considering the recent conflict over the symbolism of the Confederate flag, Mr. Webb’s contention that what is now pejoratively termed “Redneck” is a continuation of the anti-government, tribal mentality that made the Scots-Irish survive. To quote Mr. Webb: “Blamed for slavery although only a minute percentage actually owned slaves, they suffered for generations after the Civil War due to the twin calamities of Reconstruction and an ever-increasing seclusion of the Appalachian and Allegheny Mountains.”But it didn’t stop there: Many Scots-Irish have been members of the Military through every armed conflict the U.S. has had. And for their motivation, well, Mr. Webb describes it as related to “Celtic ties of kinship:” “From the earliest known history of the Celts, military service was viewed not simply as an obligation but as a high honor. Fighting for – and alongside – the tribal leader (or, later, the Great Captain, or as now, one’s branch of service) brought one into the family.”Mr. Webb spends an entire chapter on Andrew Jackson, military man and President, as not only an example of the Scots-Irish culture but as a person who influenced the more populist movements in America. Mr. Webb quotes historian Walter Russell Mead: “(the Jacksonians believe) that the government should do everything in its power to promote the well-being – political, moral, economic – of the folk community.”This summary only scratches the surface of the rich and complex history of this hardy people, and certainly helps explain Mr. Webb’s pride in his family history of military service and political service, as well as some of his more controversial outlooks as a contemporary Presidential candidate. I greatly enjoyed reading this book and would recommend it heartily, no matter your ethnic background or political leanings.

The Scots-Irish, perhaps the least assimilated of the Insular Celts of prehistory, remain a people apart. They have cultural similarities to other insular peoples such as the Kurds, the Karen and the !Kung people. But they are "our" people apart, not those of some faraway part of the world.Born Fighting is an expansion of Webb's lifetime collected observations as to how and why the American Scots-Irish came into being, as well as how they have shaped and continue to shape both American and world civilization. It is highly appreciated, since the usual political, academic and cultural expostulations are easily seen by anyone with Appalachian background as being contrived at best but generally nonsense.Webb divides his book into seven parts, with the first and last being an introduction and a reflective analysis. Parts two through six give the history of the early Scots people, the Ulster Scots, the place of the people in the American Revolution, the Old South and the Confederacy, and the second diaspora. He provides an historical context and explanation how it is that this culture of hardship and poverty continues to provide America with the its unseen core of adaptive skill and energy.He makes a point several times that the Scots-Irish are an inclusive, hybridized people. He points out that the Scots-Irish American culture has assimilated individual members of its historical enemies such as the Borders people, Irish, Germans, Africans, and others who have married into or moved into its communities. Acceptance of worthy outsiders remains one of the strong traditions but cultural testing occurs when the outsider is called upon to live up to the basic values of loyalty, independence, and bravery in hardship.This book was a revelation, one of the few that I've read which starts to make the psyche of the Scots-Irish people understandable in both psychological and historical context. But it is not the ending of Scots-Irish cultural studies and I look forward to more of the same genre.The (reprinted in the Amazon product description) Publisher's Weekly review demonstrates that Scots-Irish culture remains beyond the grasp of some readers, even professional reviewers. That particular reviewer's shallow and false analysis seems to be presented only to touch all the politically correct bases but it also aptly illustrates the author's point that the Scots-Irish story "...has been lost under the weight of more recent immigrations, revisionist historians, and common ignorance." The reader who is appreciative of Scots-Irish wit may wish to revisit this review once they have read Webb's discussion of the cultural/ethnocentric bigotry he discusses as having occurred during his time as a student at Georgetown Law. The reader will find the review uproariously funny once they are 'inside' the joke. (A brief discussion of his experience at Georgetown is found in part seven of the book in the chapter entitled "The Invisible People".)This book is liberally seeded with footnotes, references and quotations from important historical figures and historians and gives sufficient citations for further study by the reader. These citations are themselves worth the price of the book. The only lack I can see is that since it was published in 2004, it entirely predates the major career of the most recent and arguably the most populist of US Scots-Irish presidents, Barack Obama. So when it is revised and updated for a second edition I do hope that Webb presents a good analysis of this important historical figure.(Edited to add the note that readers who want to delve further into the past, to find out the roots of how the Scots began to settle in Ireland might find it helpful to look up the word Gallowglass or Galloglass, to read about the medieval Scots mercenaries of Ireland. Significant numbers later Scot-Irish were members of or married into the old Gallowglass families.)

A very revealing book about the making of America. Webb's thesis is very convincing. The fighting US spirit certainly didn't come from the English. It came from the tough Scots-Irish settlers, who had survived a transatlantic voyage that was far worse than the slave ships and killed almost half of them according to other research. I found the chapter on Andrew Jackson very good. He was a fighter all his life and faced down the Rothschilds, who unfortunately finally won control of the US banking system in 1913 and took just 20 years to bankrupt America in 1933. The Scots-Irish have since been eclipsed by another group which has brought the United States down to the shameful state it's in today. There will be no 'New American Century'.

An interesting book, probably more relevant to US politics than some would like to admit.My personal takeaway was the information that the Scots-Irish in America departed too soon to be influenced by the Scots enlightenment, and did not live in circunstances that encouraged a love of learning. As somebody brought up on the notion that rural Scots in straightened circumstances could still be very literate - on Burns and Watt as well as Bruce and Wallace - this was a surprise to me, but the author is convincing here as elsewhere.

I, as a Scotsman, read this book on the recommendation of friend, reading it during my deployment in Afghanistan with the 1st and then 2nd Marine Expeditionary Forces. I found the story compelling and borne out in truth from reflecting on my own culture, spirit and history and more so from my interactions with the Marines of the USMC, many of whom trace their lineage back to their Scots-Irish roots; and who were proud to reveal their stories and their heritage. A well researched and gripping account of these, the best of people.

...in every way.

one of the best books I have ever read :)