Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America | James Webb

Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America | James Webb | WOW!

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Born Fighting: How...

	Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America James Webb Broadway, 2005 - 400 pages average customer review:based on 142 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Honor - Courage - Committment

If only more people were as proud of their heritage !

Sect Webb has written a book that's lucid, accurate, and thoroughly enjoyable. It's no surprise that with his dedication to "Honor - Courage - Committment" that the 'elite's' like Publishers Weekly hates his book - he espouses principles and concepts of sweat, toil, and hard work that these media weasels will never understand.

There's more to being Irish than just St Patrick' Day, and this book helps describe the traditions and background that these brave people brought that made this country great. Well Done !

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WOW!

What a thoroughly enjoyable read! Jim Webb has told the story of my people better than anyone I've read--there are a couple of other books that attempt what he so masterfully accomplished. I was pleased to learn that stubbornness, the willingness to fight when pressed, and honor were genetic---or at least hard-wired into the Scot-Irish people. An excellent review of our history, and of our people and how they came to be major players in establishing this Great Nation.
Highly recommended. Bravo Zulu! Secretary Webb!

Rare insight

Marvelously written with rare insight, "Born Fighting" represents a landmark contribution to understanding a vital aspect of American history and culture. It's apparent that most of the critics of this fine book were not going to be won over, regardless of the volume's merits. That is their loss; judging by the overall responses, the huge majority of readers recognize Webb's talent and perspective.

The book covers so much ground--chronologically and geographically--that the subject almost defies one volume. Yet Webb has managed to stuff 15 pounds into a 10-pound bag with judicious selectivity of representative people and events. From William Wallace to Andrew Jackson and beyond, the author distills Scots-Irish traits into a heady brew while providing a "public service" in explaining just what the Scots-Irish are. (They are not "either-or" but a true mixture, having mingled both Celtic origins into one in Northern Ireland before arrival in the new world. That fact seems to elude some of the critics who insist that the union-oriented Catholic Irish of the Northeast "disprove" Webb's descriptions of the generally independent-minded Protestants.)

Webb deserves high credit for devoting ample space to a topic hugely overlooked: the legality of secession, which remains undecided 140 years after the War Between the States. He notes--correctly--that the burning moral issue of slavery overshadowed the constitutional subject both then and now. The historical verdict seems to imply that admission to the union carries the same limits as the Irish Republican Army: "Once in, never out."

If anything, Webb might have delved more into Jackson's erratic nature. As the first Scots-Irish president, he retained the personal values of his bloodline but pursued ardent federalist policies--a contradiction hard to explain.

Yet for all the famous Scots-Irish who fight, bleed, migrate, and endure across Webb's pages, perhaps the most vivid portrayal is his own grandfather, the survivor of grinding poverty and work-imposed disability who, near the end of his life, stared down the camera lens with such fierce independence that Webb mounted the photo in a rough wood frame in each of his offices--a vivid contrast with the moneyed patricians adorning so many colleageues' walls.

Two Celtic friends of mine have given copies of this book to each of their children. One suspects that is what Jim Webb had in mind.

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Excellent!

Publisher's Weekly gets it all wrong, but, what would you expect? They are part of the "elite" that Webb takes to task. As a Scots-Irish myself, I can tell you that Webb gets it right. Read the book, it is excellent.

Scots-Irish

As an American of Scots-Irish descent, I welcome the spotlight given to my somewhat forgotten ethnic group. It is a good read overall but Webb is too general in his conclusions. So sweeping are his assessments perhaps the book's intention was to introduce and bring the Scots-Irish to reader's attention and nothing more. My only other criticism is Webb's treatment of the Scots-Irish and education. The lasting legacy of the Scottish Presbyterian Church on American education is profound and this was not done by non-Ulster Scots only.

Despite the above remarks, I enjoyed this book tremendously and recommend it. Many Americans who read it will discover something of themselves in its pages.

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