A Cultural History of America's Scots Irish: From Border Reivers on the Anglo-Scottish Border to Mountaineers in Appalachia

Description

Who are we? When this question refers to America, the answer must include America’s Scots Irish. Consider that theirs was one of the four main cultures present at America’s founding, and as will be posited, it came to dominate that of the American South. Furthermore, one branch went on to found the culture of the Mountaineers of Appalachia, a people known for a condition of extreme poverty. Given their history, it speaks poorly of historians and educators that, today, many, if not most, Americans do not know their name, let alone having any idea of who these people are. It is the hope of the author that in some way, even small, this book alleviates some of that ignorance.

A Cultural History of America’s Scots Irish is unusual. It addresses not only the question, Who are the Scots Irish?—a fairly mundane exercise—but the far more insightful, Why did they come to be the people who they are?

Who a people are, their nature or culture, does not arise from random processes but from their response to changes in their environment, both natural and man-made. This story of the Scots Irish, like other histories, is the history of events. But where it differs is in the coupling of historical changes in environment to those of culture, a unique historical lens informing why the Scots Irish came to be who they are today.