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I haven’t read Albion’s seed, so maybe I’m missing something. But… I don’t see any evidence for anything in the piece. Just because you can make a narrative abo
by Gimpei 2y ago
I haven’t read Albion’s seed, so maybe I’m missing something. But… I don’t see any evidence for anything in the piece. Just because you can make a narrative about the similarities between puritans and certain facets of California policy doesn’t mean that one caused the other. I could point out parallels between the puritans and Japanese culture too, or Venezuelan culture. This doesn’t seem like history to me so much as fiction writing.
- VoodooJuJu 2y agoRight, this article doesn't make a case tracing Puritan and Borderer settlement to modern day California, but the book Albion's Seed does, and it makes a very convincing case. The book examines a variety of folkways, naming conventions, and lineages in the cultural regions throughout old England, discovers those same things present in regions throughout America, and then follows the continued expression of those folkways and lineages all the way up to the present day. And although we can find similarities between Puritans or Borderers with other cultures around the world, we can't make a convincing case that, for example, the Japanese had a significant influence on American culture and politics, because again, the primary sources revealing the folkways examined in Albion's seed are quite distinct and can be accurately traced from old England, to American settlement, and again up to the present day. Puritan architecture, food, naming conventions, and ancestry is quite distinct and well-understood, and we see evidence of those things throughout the United states, whereas there's not much Japanese architecture, food, place-names, or influential dynasties here in America. Anyway, Albion's Seed is a very good book that I highly recommend reading.