Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America | 
 enlarge | Author: James Webb
Publisher: Broadway
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  131 reviews
Sales Rank: 2493
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 1
ISBN: 0767916891
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.049162
EAN: 9780767916899
ASIN: 0767916891
Publication Date: October 11, 2005
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Shipping: International shipping available
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Product Description
More than 27 million Americans today can trace their lineage to the Scots, whose bloodline was stained by centuries of continuous warfare along the border between England and Scotland, and later in the bitter settlements of England’s Ulster Plantation in Northern Ireland. Between 250,000 and 400,000 Scots-Irish migrated to America in theeighteenth century, traveling in groups of families and bringing with them not only longexperience as rebels and outcasts but also unparalleled skills as frontiersmen and guerrilla fighters. Their cultural identity reflected acute individualism, dislike of aristocracy and a military tradition, and, over time, the Scots-Irish defined the attitudes and values of the military, of working class America, and even of the peculiarly populist form of American democracy itself.
Born Fighting is the first book to chronicle the full journey of this remarkable cultural group, and the profound, but unrecognized, role ithas played in the shaping of America. Written with the storytelling verve that has earned his works such acclaim as “captivating . . . unforgettable” (the Wall Street Journal on Lost Soliders), Scots-Irishman James Webb, Vietnam combat veteran and former Naval Secretary, traces the history of his people, beginning nearly two thousand years ago at Hadrian’s Wall, when the nation of Scotland was formed north of the Wall through armed conflict in contrast to England’s formation to the south through commerce and trade. Webb recounts the Scots’ odyssey—their clashes with the English in Scotland and then in Ulster, their retreat from one war-ravaged land to another. Through engrossing chronicles of the challenges the Scots-Irish faced, Webb vividly portrays how they developed the qualities that helped settle the American frontier and define the American character.
Born Fighting shows that the Scots-Irish were 40 percent of the Revolutionary War army; they included the pioneers Daniel Boone, Lewis and Clark, Davy Crockett, and Sam Houston; they were the writers Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain; and they have given America numerous great military leaders, including Stonewall Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, Audie Murphy, and George S. Patton, as well as most of the soldiers of the Confederacy (only 5 percent of whom owned slaves, and who fought against what they viewed as an invading army). It illustrates how the Scots-Irish redefined American politics, creating the populist movement and giving the country a dozen presidents, including Andrew Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton. And it explores how the Scots-Irish culture of isolation, hard luck, stubbornness, and mistrust of the nation’s elite formed and still dominates blue-collar America, the military services, the Bible Belt, and country music.
Both a distinguished work of cultural history and a human drama that speaks straight to the heart of contemporary America, Born Fighting reintroduces America to its most powerful, patriotic, and individualistic cultural group—one too often ignored or taken for granted.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 126 more reviews...
GREAT READ , HOWEVER , PRINTING JOB WAS SLOPPY July 1, 2008
I READ BORN FIGHTING AS A BOOK CLUB ASSIGNMENT AND OBTAINED THE BOOK FROM THE LIBRARY . I ENJOYED IT SO MUCH THAT I ORDERED FIVE PAPERBACKS TO GIVE AS GIFTS . AFTER ABOUT 250 PAGES THE BOOKS REVERTED TO PAGE 45 AND REPEATED ABOUT 30 PAGES AND THEN RESUMED THE STORY AT ABOUT 285. THE RESULT WAS VERY DISAPPOINTING AND EMBARRASSING TO ME . I DON'T KNOW IF THERE IS ANY RECOURCE TO THE PRINTER OR TO AMAZON.COM BUT I WOULD BE INTERESTED TO KNOW IF THIS HAPPENED TO ANYONE ELSE .
 Understanding and appreciating my Scots-Irish family June 19, 2008
I share Scots-Irish heritage with the author--born in a remote mountain area to a family that was poor, fiercely independent, mostly self-taught and proud. Jim Webb has written a book that explains much about this how hard-to-categorize part of the population thinks and acts.This is good reading for anyone who shares this heritage, and should be required reading for those who work with or interact with us!
Born Fighting June 9, 2008
I have never been a history buff, but in doing my family research and learning more about my Scots-Irish heritage, this book was a must-have and it has been a fascinating read. I'd recommend it.
 Deplorable ignorance April 18, 2008
9 out of 17 found this review helpful
As a Scottish Highlander having read widely on Scottish history this book was the most infuriating i have ever read. The only possible reason this book could be recommended would be to raise awareness of the disgraceful ignorance and mythmaking which is being peddled in the US. It is saturated with political bias, self-righteous egomania and highly flawed and dangerous concepts of ethnicity, blood and race. It uses selective evidence, plain innacuracies and flawed analysis. In addition it paints a pure stereotype while at the same time criticising those who do the same. He tries to paint the Celts as a distinct race, not defined by culture and language. He also fails to address the point that those of Lowland Scots ancestory alligned themselves with the anglo-saxon English speaking world and despised Highlanders and thier Celtic ways - who were abused as 'racially inferior'. This was also the case after immigration into the US, and these prejudices were integral to the culture of the South. Any proper historical knowledge of immigration of Scots to the Americas would realise this, and the fact that of those most Celtic in language and culture, many more ended up in Canada and North US. This book was flawed from the start.
 An Oddly Personal Account March 27, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
"Born Fighting" by James Webb is a strange book by a troubled man. Ostensibly, it is about the Scots-Irish and how they shaped America. It is actually a tersely written, deeply personal account of what it means to be a descendant of Scots-Irish emigrants, and how this affects many Southerners today. The book has some wonderful qualities, such as the fact that its author "takes no prisoners" in his debates with those who espouse political correctness. For example, Webb includes an account of his return from Vietnam, where he had served honorably in the armed forces (just like many of his Scots-Irish ancestors), and how this made adjustment to civilian life difficult. For example, one extremely liberal law professor evidently delighted in torturing Webb for his service to his country as a Marine, and this understandably got Webb's Scots-Irish blood boiling. Another positive thing about this book is that Webb is very proud to be from the South, and takes up for the Celtic/Scots-Irish qualities that have made the South so distinctive. He obviously learned many of these ideas by reading the works of Celtic Thesis Historians Grady McWhiney and Forrest McDonald, who wrote that colonial and antebellum Southerners differed from Northerners primarily because the former came from a Celtic-derived culture and Yankees historically came from an English/Germanic-derived culture. On these issues, Webb is on surer footing, and follows somewhat in David Hackett Fischer's able footsteps, too. The problem with this book is that he takes it too far, and converts his respect and admiration for the Scots-Irish into Ancestor Worship, pure and simple. Webb is the latest in a long line of such historians (though, again, this is not really so much a history as a personal account) who have written volumes of books since around 1850. Their general tone is that the Scots-Irish could do no wrong, and built America single-handedly, bringing democracy, reformed religion, and a spirit of independence with them to the New World - and that no other group could match their greatness. However, these scholars have usually insisted on an Anglo-Saxon background for the Scots-Irish, and this is where Webb's unique contribution to the historiography of this subject comes in. He is an Ancestor Worshipper who is a follower of the Celtic Thesis - a new twist on an old debate (for more on Scots-Irish historiography see my reviews of James G. Leyburn's "The Scots-Irish: A Social History" and Grady McWhiney's "Cracker Culture"). I did enjoy this book; however if you want to read a good history of the Scots-Irish, start with Leyburn. Don't get me wrong, you can learn a lot about the Scots-Irish from Webb's book. Ultimately though, I think it tells us more about its author and his idiosycracies than anything else.
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