Born Fighting, Jim Webb
Born Fighting, Jim Webb
4 Rating(s)
List: $22.99 | Sale: $16.09
Club: $11.49

Born Fighting
How the Scots-Irish Shaped America

Author: Jim Webb

Narrator: Allan Robertson

Unabridged: 13 hr 1 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Lantern Audio

Published: 10/20/2015

Categories: Nonfiction, History


Synopsis

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 the eighteenth century, traveling in groups of families and bringing with them not only long experience 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 it has 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.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Baal Of on November 02, 2015

This is a self-aggrandizing, myopic view of Webb's people, with an entrenched narrative of long-suffering while making excuses for anything negative. While I grant that there is a lot of truth contained in this book, and Webb does present a fair amount of the complexities of the history, he persiste......more

Goodreads review by ♥Milica♥ on February 25, 2025

The history was indeed interesting, I learned some things I didn't know before, and the passion Jim Webb has for his heritage shows. However...I'm not so sure I'd recommend this. There's a very obvious bias, and like, I too would agree that the English are to blame for everything ever (I'm kidding),......more

Goodreads review by Doug on August 12, 2009

This book was interesting in parts and reasonably well written. It's really a book in two parts, one about the history of the Scots-Irish beginning in Scotland, the Plantation in Ireland through the English civil wars, and emigration, the second about the Scots-Irish in America. The first part is re......more

Goodreads review by Lisa on August 29, 2010

An amazing book by (somewhat surprisingly) a Democrat, chronicling the history of the Ulster Scots AKA the Northern Irish Protestants AKA the Scots-Irish into the New World and beyond. I have been reading this book for 4 months. It is not a slow read, but I found myself so facinated with the history......more

Goodreads review by ALLEN on July 07, 2020

Soldier turned Senator turned author Jim Webb has given us a total of ten books, of which the best known is probably 2004's Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America, an analysis of the Scots-Irish in history and especially in the USA. From William Wallace and Robert the Bruce on to the Batt......more