INSIDERS, OUTSIDE:
THE SCOTS IRISH AND THE ENGLISH IN AMERICA
The People with No Name: Ireland's Ulster Scots, America's
Scots Irish, and the Creation of a British Atlantic World, 1689¨1764.
By Patrick Griffin. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press,
2001. xv + 244 pp. Maps, notes, bibliography, and index. $55.00 (cloth);
$19.95 (paper).
Accent on Privilege: English Identities and Anglophilia in
the United States. By Katherine W. Jones. Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania: Temple University Press, 2001. xii + 284 pp. Notes, bibliography,
and index. $69.50 (cloth); $19.95 (paper).
David T. Gleeson
College of Charleston
On the face of it these two works seem to be an odd pairing for a review
essay. Griffin, a historian, examines the complex nature of ethnic identity
among the Northern Ireland Presbyterians who emigrated to America in the
eighteenth century, while Jones, a sociologist, studies the experience
of modern-day middle-class English migrants living in the northeastern
United States. Griffin's work includes copious amounts of primary research
in church records and private papers, while the core of Jones's book is
thirty-four interviews conducted by herself in the mid-1990s. Despite
the contrasts in topic and style the books have an important commonality.
Both explore identities, and the fluid nature of these, among groups who
usually do not attract the attention of ethnographers and historians.
Work on the Scots Irish usually emphasizes how quickly they became American
as the pioneers of the colonial backcountry and the vanguard of the American
revolution. Similarly, the United States has deep English roots and, as
Jones's title highlights, the only "problem" the English had to deal with
was the love and admiration of the native population. These books emphasize
that both stories were/are a lot more complicated.
|
|
