ALBION’S SEED: Four British Folkways in America.

Abion's Seed



Fischer, David Hackett. ALBION’S SEED: Four British Folkways in America. (OxfordUniversity Press, Oxford, 1989) Colonial Cultural History, Maps, Illustrations, Charts, Tables, Index. 946 pages.


"An important and seminal work. No serious historian is likely to question the existence of the four cultures Fischer identifies. No one else has so clearly differentiated them from each other…. This volume will give direction not only to the author’s future work but to the research of many other historians.”  Edmund S. Morgan, The New York Review of Books.


Genealogy is huge, just like a forest. Most genealogical researchers are interested in the basic details associated with each individual. Fischer uses a variety of statistical sociological studies to examine the entire group. Instead of just one group though, he finds there are actually four distinct types of groups. In this book, he traces and delineates each of the four sub-cultures of the English colonies of eastern North America. 


This book is commercially available through most online booksellers (for about $20 new, $9 used). This book is not available in a digital edition, or free from an online archive.



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