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Title: Nonsense
Review: Although fun to read, this book relies almost exclusively upon English and Northern travel accounts, and their descriptions of Scots, Irish, Celtic, and American Southerners. Because they all share the same traits- lazy, drunken, idle, violent, uneducated- it is concluded that this Southern character directly stems from his Celtic ancestors.Although the South is clearly influenced by Celtic migration, the logic of following English accounts to portray Scots, Irish and Southerns as the same is illogical, considering English accounts of blacks and Native Americans (and almost every other culture they met) give the exact same descriptions. Suggesting that Africans and Scotsmen share the same decendancy, because Anglos have decribed both as lazy, violent and savage is ridiculous, yet this is exactly the logic that McWhiney follows.Scots and Irish influences are clearly felt in the South, but they are beyond the English and Northern comic book descriptions that McWhiney trusts
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