'Champlain's Dream: The European Founding of North America'

WSJ Online ^ | October, 2008 | David Hackett Fischer

[gusopol3]

link only

[gusopol3]

Has anyone ever heard why Fischer has not been able to publish American Plantations which was to be the second volume of his history of the founding of America? Immediately after I read the magnificent Albion's Seed in 1997, I wanted to go forward with the story, and the dust jacket at that time led me to believe that I'd be able to pick up "Plantations" very soon. Not finding it, I called the History Dept. at Brandeis and asked the receptionist when the book might be available. She answered "Dr. Fischer's standing right here, would you like to ask him?" Of course I was thrilled and expressed my thanks to him for writing such a great book. I asked him when Plantations would come out. He gave me a quick idea of what it would be about, and said he had "just returned from a research trip to Africa" and that it usually would take about a year for the editing to be finished. Fischer was in his early sixties at that time. He's now in his seventies, and the book has still not appeared although several others have, like Washington's Crossing and Paul Revere, and now Champlain's Dream as well as the semi coffee table book Liberty and Freedom whose introductory essay is so compelling that I have often wanted to post on FR. Anyway, I've waited for Plantations to appear and have frequently gone to Amazon looking for it. A very strange thing happened on one occasion, when I clicked for a review, though it may have been at a different link I'd gotten through Google. A review appeared in very faint print, talking about the subject matter of the book, which is life on an American slave plantation, then as I was reading it, the printing faded away. I've never found it again. But the main thing is, has the book been hung up for over ten years in some sort of PC struggle, and if so, why has Dr. Fischer allowed it to happen without crying out about academic freedom?

[Army Air Corps]

Albion's Seed was an excellent book.

[gusopol3]

I’m not sure how conservative he is, but he’s definitely had a lot of very negative things to say about liberal academic historians. In Washington’s Crossing, he is so venomous and personal toward a woman he’d heard on the radio stating that Washington never could have stood up in the boat, that it’s almost uncomfortable to read.

[kaspergutman]

Thanks for posting a link to what is (apparently) part of the introduction of Fischer's new book.

I've read two of his earlier books, Paul Revere's Ride and Washington's Crossing; Fischer is an exhaustive researcher and quite talented wordsmith. Have to put myself on the library list for Champlain's Dream.

[gusopol3]

Don’t miss Albion’s Seed. It is his masterwork. The Plantations book was to be part two, working in the African folkway, so I can’t imagine that he’s not disappointed at not getting it out of the editing stage ten years + later.

[Claud]

ping

[Ciexyz]

btt

[kaspergutman]

Don’t miss Albion’s Seed

Thanks for the tip. I'll add it too my reading list.