What do you think?
Rate this book
Cracker Culture Hardcover – February 28, 1988
A History Book Club Alternate Selection. "A controversial and provocative study of the fundamental differences that shaped the South ... fun to read", -- History Book Club Review
Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 1988
22 people are currently reading
631 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
December 12, 2008
This book more or less takes the position that the civil war between the north and south was more a conflict of cultures than anything else. The yankees being predominently of English stock were industrious, money grubbing, uptight dullards and the people of the south having more people of Celtic ancestry were a tempermental, emotional lot who would rather spend their days screwing their women and running through the woods with their hound dogs than working their fingers to the bone from sun up till sun down. Being a southerner of celtic ancestry maybe I should have gotten offended by some of the stereotypes laid out in this book but I found it interesting and entertaining instead.
March 16, 2023
This for me is a hard book to rate. I like that McWhiney did not try to pathologize white Southern culture. His argument, that the South represented a culture at odds with the North, which made war easier, is well stated and persuasive. It is also refreshing to read a book on the antebellum South that does not focus on slavery, which in our time where anti-racism is a religion, seems to be all anyone cares about.
Yet, the book suffers at times from being a catalogue of anecdotes. As with much thesis driven work, that which would complicate the thesis is left out and things are simplified and streamlined. There was more at work than Celtic culture, important as it was. The same is true of the long discredited arguments in Attack and Die, where the thesis was allowed to run free. As such, Cracker Culture is a decent book, but it cannot rise above its flaws to become a classic, and it really is a pity. Rarely have I wanted to rate a book higher but found I could not do it.
Yet, the book suffers at times from being a catalogue of anecdotes. As with much thesis driven work, that which would complicate the thesis is left out and things are simplified and streamlined. There was more at work than Celtic culture, important as it was. The same is true of the long discredited arguments in Attack and Die, where the thesis was allowed to run free. As such, Cracker Culture is a decent book, but it cannot rise above its flaws to become a classic, and it really is a pity. Rarely have I wanted to rate a book higher but found I could not do it.
May 1, 2017
Fascinating analysis. I've long been familiar with the thesis, found in Tom Sowell and Jim Webb, that Scots-Irish culture, encompassing propensity for alcohol and violence, aversion to work and to preparing for one's future, became our Appalachian culture, and eventually southern or "red-neck" culture. I've puzzled a bit over how smallish numbers of Scots-Irish (mostly sent out to the American frontier to provide a buffer between the savage Indians and the proper folks) could have had such an impact on the larger culture.
In the body of the book, McWhiney deals with Celtic culture in general, demonstrates a preponderance of folks of Celtic extraction in the anti-bellum South, and demonstrates tight linkage between personality traits in the South and in the pre-1700 Celtic fringe of the British Isles: Ireland, Scotland and the north of England, Wales, Cornwall. Most of it mountainous, as distinguished from the mostly lowland in south and east, held by the Anglo-Saxons. Hill country requires herding (cows, goats, sheep or, in the American South, pigs); lowlands accommodate agriculture.
In a brilliant forward, Forrest McDonald argues that herding cultures breed a profound dislike of work, but a tendency toward violence; agricultural areas the opposite. If one is a dirt farmer, one survives by daily toil. Violence against ones neighbor does little good; one cannot carry back home enough rutabagas to make robbery worthwhile. In a pastoral or herding setting, one needs to hang out with the cattle, but mostly while taking a nap (the cows do all the work); when the dog barks, one needs a brief moment of violence to chase off the wolf, and can then go back to sleep. Further, it makes sense to rustle your neighbor's cattle; you don't have to carry them home, and you can herd home enough calories to see you through a long winter. You need to be violent to pull of the theft; further, to deter your neighbor from rustling your cattle, you need to come across as the most vicious, hair-trigger SOB around. But, it makes little sense to plan for the future; what with all the violence and cattle rustling, not to mention the occasional burning down of your neighbor's homestead, planning goes for naught. Feuds make sense; you don't rustle from a fellow whose whole family will come over to slaughter your family.
One might ask: if the Vikings conquered large areas of Britain, and mixed with locals, how come society did not change? Turns out, Vikings were themselves a bit differentiated, and perhaps settled where they were comfortable. Swedes largely voyaged east; few washed up in Britain. Danes settled in the lowland, Anglo-Saxon areas; Denmark is mostly flat agricultural land. The Norse mostly wound up in the Celtic hill country; Norway is nothing but mountains and fiords. So, if anything, the Vikings reinforced existing culture (likely migrating to locales of familiar landscape and economy).
In the body of the book, McWhiney deals with Celtic culture in general, demonstrates a preponderance of folks of Celtic extraction in the anti-bellum South, and demonstrates tight linkage between personality traits in the South and in the pre-1700 Celtic fringe of the British Isles: Ireland, Scotland and the north of England, Wales, Cornwall. Most of it mountainous, as distinguished from the mostly lowland in south and east, held by the Anglo-Saxons. Hill country requires herding (cows, goats, sheep or, in the American South, pigs); lowlands accommodate agriculture.
In a brilliant forward, Forrest McDonald argues that herding cultures breed a profound dislike of work, but a tendency toward violence; agricultural areas the opposite. If one is a dirt farmer, one survives by daily toil. Violence against ones neighbor does little good; one cannot carry back home enough rutabagas to make robbery worthwhile. In a pastoral or herding setting, one needs to hang out with the cattle, but mostly while taking a nap (the cows do all the work); when the dog barks, one needs a brief moment of violence to chase off the wolf, and can then go back to sleep. Further, it makes sense to rustle your neighbor's cattle; you don't have to carry them home, and you can herd home enough calories to see you through a long winter. You need to be violent to pull of the theft; further, to deter your neighbor from rustling your cattle, you need to come across as the most vicious, hair-trigger SOB around. But, it makes little sense to plan for the future; what with all the violence and cattle rustling, not to mention the occasional burning down of your neighbor's homestead, planning goes for naught. Feuds make sense; you don't rustle from a fellow whose whole family will come over to slaughter your family.
One might ask: if the Vikings conquered large areas of Britain, and mixed with locals, how come society did not change? Turns out, Vikings were themselves a bit differentiated, and perhaps settled where they were comfortable. Swedes largely voyaged east; few washed up in Britain. Danes settled in the lowland, Anglo-Saxon areas; Denmark is mostly flat agricultural land. The Norse mostly wound up in the Celtic hill country; Norway is nothing but mountains and fiords. So, if anything, the Vikings reinforced existing culture (likely migrating to locales of familiar landscape and economy).
May 24, 2021
I have to agree with the reviewers who see this book as invented mythology. While the author is passionate and marshals (or synthesises) evidence to support his views, and creates an entertaining read, the book's founding premises are historically inaccurate and its conclusions equally mistaken.
First, both North AND South were originally settled by English-majority colonists in the 17th century. The South takes its cultural cues from early colonial Virginia, which was just as English in culture as New England proper. Celtic migration in large numbers did not commence until the mid-1700s, from Scotland, north Ireland, and borderland north England, and these immigrants settled in the north - chiefly Pennsylvania - as much as in the south. In fact, there was much cross-migration between the two regions as to render meaningless a north-south division on the American frontier.
Other reviewers have noted that the most Celtic regions of the South, in the border-mountain zones, remained anti-Confederate and "national" in their orientation and were totally unaware that as "good Celts" they had to project the myth of Bonnie Prince Charlie onto the Federal US government. Add to this that the majority of Celtic immigrants at the time of the Civil War - Catholic Irish - were concentrated in the North, and the author's opinions on said war are reduced to more Southern romantic yarn-spinning. His "basis" for the Celtic myth seems to revolve around the large Scottish settlements in eastern North Carolina, in the mid-1700s, which had their influence (the burning cross of the KKK, for instance); but to create a Celtic mythology out of this is historic nonsense.
Other reviewers have noted the author's elision of native American and black influences on Southern society and culture. What makes Southern music, for instance, distictive is not its "Celticism" but the African contributions, from instruments like the banjo to the very rhythm of lyrics and tune.
While the author may have chosen to interpret Southern distinctiveness and rebellion in these terms, and see parallels between Celt rebels and the civil war, his preference does not make historic reality. One can just as easily place the Southern revolt in the context of mainstream English history beginning with the civil war of the 1640s: the term "cavalier," after all, was applied to the losers of the civil war who fled to Virginia, while the winners founded New England. The English legacy of Oliver Cromwell thus has a thousand times more to do with Southern tradition and Northern hostility than Celtic social biology. This book, however, is a pseudo-scholarly warmover of Sir Walter Scott's romances, favored by the Southern ruling gentry. Which says it all.
First, both North AND South were originally settled by English-majority colonists in the 17th century. The South takes its cultural cues from early colonial Virginia, which was just as English in culture as New England proper. Celtic migration in large numbers did not commence until the mid-1700s, from Scotland, north Ireland, and borderland north England, and these immigrants settled in the north - chiefly Pennsylvania - as much as in the south. In fact, there was much cross-migration between the two regions as to render meaningless a north-south division on the American frontier.
Other reviewers have noted that the most Celtic regions of the South, in the border-mountain zones, remained anti-Confederate and "national" in their orientation and were totally unaware that as "good Celts" they had to project the myth of Bonnie Prince Charlie onto the Federal US government. Add to this that the majority of Celtic immigrants at the time of the Civil War - Catholic Irish - were concentrated in the North, and the author's opinions on said war are reduced to more Southern romantic yarn-spinning. His "basis" for the Celtic myth seems to revolve around the large Scottish settlements in eastern North Carolina, in the mid-1700s, which had their influence (the burning cross of the KKK, for instance); but to create a Celtic mythology out of this is historic nonsense.
Other reviewers have noted the author's elision of native American and black influences on Southern society and culture. What makes Southern music, for instance, distictive is not its "Celticism" but the African contributions, from instruments like the banjo to the very rhythm of lyrics and tune.
While the author may have chosen to interpret Southern distinctiveness and rebellion in these terms, and see parallels between Celt rebels and the civil war, his preference does not make historic reality. One can just as easily place the Southern revolt in the context of mainstream English history beginning with the civil war of the 1640s: the term "cavalier," after all, was applied to the losers of the civil war who fled to Virginia, while the winners founded New England. The English legacy of Oliver Cromwell thus has a thousand times more to do with Southern tradition and Northern hostility than Celtic social biology. This book, however, is a pseudo-scholarly warmover of Sir Walter Scott's romances, favored by the Southern ruling gentry. Which says it all.
September 15, 2022
An astonishing read. I felt as though (my parents being from Oklahoma and Texas from way back) after a life of supposed autonomy, I had lived in an entirely cracker culture and find myself a cracker in so many ways. Anyone who is a southerner or who comes from southern stock needs to read this book.
November 20, 2017
A fascinating ethnography of the American antebellum south, drawing comparisons with the 18th century and earlier Celtic peoples of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.
Those who do not understand why the Civil War is still a fresh wound would benefit from examining the question in light of McWhiney's sketches. I now find myself rethinking many of my settled opinions about things, from my Massachusetts views on the Civil War and reconstruction right down to political fights in my own lifetime (from litter laws to the 2nd Amendment to the culture wars).
See also Black Rednecks and White Liberals by Thomas Sowell for a contrarian application of Cracker Culture to late 20th century racial politics.
Those who do not understand why the Civil War is still a fresh wound would benefit from examining the question in light of McWhiney's sketches. I now find myself rethinking many of my settled opinions about things, from my Massachusetts views on the Civil War and reconstruction right down to political fights in my own lifetime (from litter laws to the 2nd Amendment to the culture wars).
See also Black Rednecks and White Liberals by Thomas Sowell for a contrarian application of Cracker Culture to late 20th century racial politics.
September 18, 2018
This is a tedious book that draws broad generalizations about Southern culture with one anecdote after another. While there may well be some truth to the generalizations, I would have preferred a more nuanced and sociologically sound analysis of how Celtic settlers influenced Southern attitudes.
March 14, 2025
McWhiney has impressive credentials. Nevertheless, this book is a mess.
Page after page of so called "documentation" that describes in excessive detail the flaws in southerners in antebellum America.
How could a confederation of such flawed individuals, who were outnumbered 2 to 1 by the federal armed forces cause the civil war to last four years?
Lacking in education, work ethic, religion, and countless other key areas, the southerners were so interested in a good fight that they were willing to live on almost nothing to do battle with the yankees to maintain their style of living.
I will give McWhiney the benefit of my doubt, but in doing so, I still must take exception to this depiction of a nation of inadequate citizens not capable of tying their own shoes, if they had shoes
or shoe laces.
Page after page of so called "documentation" that describes in excessive detail the flaws in southerners in antebellum America.
How could a confederation of such flawed individuals, who were outnumbered 2 to 1 by the federal armed forces cause the civil war to last four years?
Lacking in education, work ethic, religion, and countless other key areas, the southerners were so interested in a good fight that they were willing to live on almost nothing to do battle with the yankees to maintain their style of living.
I will give McWhiney the benefit of my doubt, but in doing so, I still must take exception to this depiction of a nation of inadequate citizens not capable of tying their own shoes, if they had shoes
or shoe laces.
September 14, 2019
Mcwhiney's book is an excellent dive into the history and culture of the "Crackers" of the old South. Through this book, Mcwhiney firmly establishes that the Southern states were a bastion of Celtic culture and tradition, with numerous Cracker practices and lifestyles that linked back to the ancient Celtic tribes of Europe.
July 16, 2024
A dishonest apologetic seeking to deny the role of slavery in the Civil War. Racist against the very people it seeks to explain. Terrible scholarship and just another tool of the Lost Cause that plagues us through this day.
Read
July 7, 2020Mostly anecdotal accounts by travelers of the antebellum South and Celtic areas of Scotland, Ireland and Wales
February 18, 2021
Not much
April 2, 2022
This book is a mere collection of quotations from primary sources. It provides an interesting background of Southern and Celtic ways, but very little analysis.
May 16, 2022
Great read - explains everything about Southern Culture, from its roots to present condition.
August 13, 2014
One might normally be reticent to pick up a volume entitled with the “C” word, the Scot-Irish equivalent of the “N” designation in impolite (ie. “racist”) society, but one would miss out on some very interesting history (with sociological implications) if one failed to read Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways in the Old South. As an academic work, this is a fascinating recap of conclusions based upon primary sources in both the Antebellum U.S. and the prior and parallel history of the U.K. As a background source of cultural differences leading up to the War of Northern Aggression, War for Southern Independence, War Between the States, or American Civil War, it is quite solid. It’s only weakness, from my perspective, is that it claims early on, “The cultural conflict between English and Celt not only continued in British North America, it shaped the history of the United States. [It]…helped create a sectionalism that swayed the social, economic, and political life of the nation and ultimately exploded into the War for Southern Independence.” (p. 7) In the conclusion, however, we read, “Nothing suggests that cultural differences ‘caused’ the southern states to succeed from the Union…” (p. 270).
To be sure, the verb “to cause” is problematic in an academic work. One doesn’t want to invoke “cause” unless one is absolutely sure that something wouldn’t have happened without that factor. I understand that. Still, the wording in the conclusion sounded like the weasel words one uses in a doctoral dissertation and backs off of the evidence presented so marvelously in the book that I was annoyed. I would have preferred wording that might have suggested that the cultural differences weren’t the “sole cause” but they certainly had a significant role in leading up to the conflict.
It was fascinating to read similar thoughts and identify similar lifestyles between residents of the Southern U.S. and Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. I chuckled to read that Jefferson Davis referred to England as the “robber nation” of the earth (p. 35) in the same way that a Mobile, Alabama native wrote that the South’s “whole commerce except a small fraction is in the hands of Northern men. 7/8 of our Bank stock is owned by Northern men….Our wholesale and retail business—everything in short worth mentioning is in the hands of [Yankees]….Financially we are more enslaved than our negroes.” (p. 259) Is it any wonder that the word “Yankee” became a verb in this era? One Henry A. Bright is quoted, “the phrase ‘to Yankee’ is [the]…equivalent with ‘to do,’ ‘to cheat.’ ‘They’d Yankee you finely,’ I heard a man say one day.” (p. 260)
I had never thought of the great cultural divide in which Yankees judged people by their net worth and Southerners judged them by their oratorical and social skills (pp. 249-50). I also hadn’t considered that the Puritan disdain for dancing would have been related to the English suspicion of music and dancing (pp. 122-3) or that Northerners felt it was impious to tell “ghost stories” while Southerners felt that they were great fun (p. 142). I never thought about the Northern desire to prosecute genocide on the Rebels as comparative to the English attitude toward the Celts (p. 157). I also loved the legend about Rebels decapitating Yankees and using their skulls for soup bowls, as in Celtic tradition (p. 157). I don’t know of any physical artifacts to support this legend, but the legend was pervasive.
A few things I learned from this book was about the Southerners’ propensity for violence and how such behavior might be related to Irish dueling clubs (even though they were technically illegal—p. 153) or even the common practice of calling out 16th century Irish justices of the peace so that they would need to fight a duel before arresting a “gentleman” (p. 162) for an alleged crime. It hadn’t registered to me that Andrew Jackson is reputed to have fought 100 duels (p. 170) and that this dueling practice would date back to the old country. Is it any wonder that Southern gentlemen were reputed to sleep with pistols (p. 134)?
I have always thought that bluegrass music and traditional Irish music had a lot in common. Cracker Culture tried interesting experiments with tapes and bluegrass musicians which demonstrated the continuity that I felt between the two musical forms but couldn’t assert with any sense of assurance. Now, I know that the relationship is demonstrable. In playing the tapes of Irish music, bluegrass musicians would identify them by the U.S. nomenclature (p. 120).
Cracker Culture is an enlightening book for people like me (of Irish/Cracker descent). Much of it is not complimentary toward my ancestral culture, but some of it explains a little about my personality and, all academic weaseling aside, it demonstrates how divided Mr. Lincoln’s “house” really was.
To be sure, the verb “to cause” is problematic in an academic work. One doesn’t want to invoke “cause” unless one is absolutely sure that something wouldn’t have happened without that factor. I understand that. Still, the wording in the conclusion sounded like the weasel words one uses in a doctoral dissertation and backs off of the evidence presented so marvelously in the book that I was annoyed. I would have preferred wording that might have suggested that the cultural differences weren’t the “sole cause” but they certainly had a significant role in leading up to the conflict.
It was fascinating to read similar thoughts and identify similar lifestyles between residents of the Southern U.S. and Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. I chuckled to read that Jefferson Davis referred to England as the “robber nation” of the earth (p. 35) in the same way that a Mobile, Alabama native wrote that the South’s “whole commerce except a small fraction is in the hands of Northern men. 7/8 of our Bank stock is owned by Northern men….Our wholesale and retail business—everything in short worth mentioning is in the hands of [Yankees]….Financially we are more enslaved than our negroes.” (p. 259) Is it any wonder that the word “Yankee” became a verb in this era? One Henry A. Bright is quoted, “the phrase ‘to Yankee’ is [the]…equivalent with ‘to do,’ ‘to cheat.’ ‘They’d Yankee you finely,’ I heard a man say one day.” (p. 260)
I had never thought of the great cultural divide in which Yankees judged people by their net worth and Southerners judged them by their oratorical and social skills (pp. 249-50). I also hadn’t considered that the Puritan disdain for dancing would have been related to the English suspicion of music and dancing (pp. 122-3) or that Northerners felt it was impious to tell “ghost stories” while Southerners felt that they were great fun (p. 142). I never thought about the Northern desire to prosecute genocide on the Rebels as comparative to the English attitude toward the Celts (p. 157). I also loved the legend about Rebels decapitating Yankees and using their skulls for soup bowls, as in Celtic tradition (p. 157). I don’t know of any physical artifacts to support this legend, but the legend was pervasive.
A few things I learned from this book was about the Southerners’ propensity for violence and how such behavior might be related to Irish dueling clubs (even though they were technically illegal—p. 153) or even the common practice of calling out 16th century Irish justices of the peace so that they would need to fight a duel before arresting a “gentleman” (p. 162) for an alleged crime. It hadn’t registered to me that Andrew Jackson is reputed to have fought 100 duels (p. 170) and that this dueling practice would date back to the old country. Is it any wonder that Southern gentlemen were reputed to sleep with pistols (p. 134)?
I have always thought that bluegrass music and traditional Irish music had a lot in common. Cracker Culture tried interesting experiments with tapes and bluegrass musicians which demonstrated the continuity that I felt between the two musical forms but couldn’t assert with any sense of assurance. Now, I know that the relationship is demonstrable. In playing the tapes of Irish music, bluegrass musicians would identify them by the U.S. nomenclature (p. 120).
Cracker Culture is an enlightening book for people like me (of Irish/Cracker descent). Much of it is not complimentary toward my ancestral culture, but some of it explains a little about my personality and, all academic weaseling aside, it demonstrates how divided Mr. Lincoln’s “house” really was.
January 15, 2008
I read this book at the behest of my creative director, who is from old Southern stock. The premise is that people of Celtic (Irish, Welsh, Scottish) decent populated the antebellum South while people of English decent populated the North and that their underlying cultural differences lead to vastly different lives and, eventually, to the Civil War.
I think Grady McWhiney makes a good case for things like the leisure culture, etc., but where I felt the book fell short was in making the connection to the Civil War. Most of his time is spent in documenting the records of (mostly Northern and English) visitors to the Old South, but he fails to weave this in as it gets closer to the war.
I think Grady McWhiney makes a good case for things like the leisure culture, etc., but where I felt the book fell short was in making the connection to the Civil War. Most of his time is spent in documenting the records of (mostly Northern and English) visitors to the Old South, but he fails to weave this in as it gets closer to the war.
December 10, 2009
This has to be the most poorly laid out book I have ever tried to read. The subject interests me and it might be a good book but with the strange size (As tall as a trade paperback but only as wide as a normal paperback) and with foot notes on every page-some of these footnotes taking up as much as 3/4ths of the text in the page just makes the book unreadable and I gave up on it.
One star for wasted time- would be interested in trying to reade a better laid out edition sometime in the future.
One star for wasted time- would be interested in trying to reade a better laid out edition sometime in the future.
May 30, 2014
Here's the thing, I was reading along, and it said, in the book, I wasn't into book learning, since I'm Southern. But I guess the exaggerated style was part of the performance and the point. It's full of figures and stats to help you take it seriously, and if you're Southern, something about it will ring true. It's somehow very entertaining, too.
November 9, 2019
This book presents a very negative view of an entire culture. It is also repetitive and boring. I do not recommend it.
July 23, 2013
Interesting . . . gave me more insight into my 'hillbilly' ancestors.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews