Background
Fischer, David Hackett was born on December 2, 1935 in Baltimore. Son of John Henry and Norma (Frederick) Fischer.
("If one laughs when David Hackett Fischer sits down to pl...)
"If one laughs when David Hackett Fischer sits down to play, one will stay to cheer. His book must be read three times: the first in anger, the srcond in laughter, the third in respect....The wisdom is expressed with a certin ruthlessness. Scarcly a major historian escapes unscathed. Ten thousand members of the AmericanHistorical Association will rush to the index and breathe a little easier to find their names absent.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061315451/?tag=2022091-20
((History) FISCHER, David Hackett & KELLY, James C. Away I...)
(History) FISCHER, David Hackett & KELLY, James C. Away I'm Bound Away: Virginia and the Westward Movement. Virginia: Virginia Historical Society, 1993. (12 X 8 1/2). Softcover. Original Wraps. Western Expansion. Creasing to corner of cover. Very Good.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0945015070/?tag=2022091-20
(Liberty and freedom: Americans agree that these values ar...)
Liberty and freedom: Americans agree that these values are fundamental to our nation, but what do they mean? How have their meanings changed through time? In this new volume of cultural history, David Hackett Fischer shows how these varying ideas form an intertwined strand that runs through the core of American life. Fischer examines liberty and freedom not as philosophical or political abstractions, but as folkways and popular beliefs deeply embedded in American culture. Tocqueville called them "habits of the heart." From the earliest colonies, Americans have shared ideals of liberty and freedom, but with very different meanings. Like DNA these ideas have transformed and recombined in each generation. The book arose from Fischer's discovery that the words themselves had differing origins: the Latinate "liberty" implied separation and independence. The root meaning of "freedom" (akin to "friend") connoted attachment: the rights of belonging in a community of freepeople. The tension between the two senses has been a source of conflict and creativity throughout American history. Liberty & Freedom studies the folk history of those ideas through more than 400 visions, images, and symbols. It begins with the American Revolution, and explores the meaning of New England's Liberty Tree, Pennsylvania's Liberty Bells, Carolina's Liberty Crescent, and "Don't Tread on Me" rattlesnakes. In the new republic, the search for a common American symbol gave new meaning to Yankee Doodle, Uncle Sam, Miss Liberty, and many other icons. In the Civil War, Americans divided over liberty and freedom. Afterward, new universal visions were invented by people who had formerly been excluded from a free society--African Americans, American Indians, and immigrants. The twentieth century saw liberty and freedom tested by enemies and contested at home, yet it brought the greatest outpouring of new visions, from Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms to Martin Luther King's "dream" to Janis Joplin's "nothin' left to lose." Illustrated in full color with a rich variety of images, Liberty and Freedom is, literally, an eye-opening work of history--stimulating, large-spirited, and ultimately, inspiring.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195162536/?tag=2022091-20
( Bound Away offers a new understanding of the westward m...)
Bound Away offers a new understanding of the westward movement. After the Turner thesis which celebrated the frontier as the source of American freedom and democracy, and the iconoclasm of the new western historians who dismissed the idea of the frontier as merely a mask for conquest and exploitation, David Hackett Fischer and James C. Kelly take a third approach to the subject. They share with Turner the idea of the westward movement as a creative process of high importance in American history, but they understand it in a different way. Where Turner studied the westward movement in terms of its destination, Fischer and Kelly approach it in terms of its origins. Virginia's long history enables them to provide a rich portrait of migration and expansion as a dynamic process that preserved strong cultural continuities. They suggest that the oxymoron "bound away"―from the folksong Shenandoah―captures a vital truth about American history. As people moved west, they built new societies from old materials, in a double-acting process that made America what is today. Based on an acclaimed exhibition at the Virginia Historical society, the book studies three stages of migration to, within, and from Virginia. Each stage has its own story to tell. All of them together offer an opportunity to study the westward movement through three centuries, as it has rarely been studied before. Fischer and Kelly believe that the westward movement was a broad cultural process, which is best understood not only through the writings of intellectual elites, but also through the physical artifacts and folkways of ordinary people. The wealth of anecdotes and illustrations in this volume offer a new way of looking at John Smith and William Byrd, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, Daniel Boone, Dred Scott, and scores of lesser known gentry, yeomen, servants, and slaves who were all "bound away" to an old new world.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813917743/?tag=2022091-20
(Six months after the Declaration of Independence, the Ame...)
Six months after the Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution was all but lost. A powerful British force had routed the Americans at New York, occupied three colonies, and advanced within sight of Philadelphia. Yet, as David Hackett Fischer recounts in this riveting history, George Washington-and many other Americans-refused to let the Revolution die. On Christmas night, as a howling nor'easter struck the Delaware Valley, he led his men across the river and attacked the exhausted Hessian garrison at Trenton, killing or capturing nearly a thousand men. A second battle of Trenton followed within days. The Americans held off a counterattack by Lord Cornwallis's best troops, then were almost trapped by the British force. Under cover of night, Washington's men stole behind the enemy and struck them again, defeating a brigade at Princeton. The British were badly shaken. In twelve weeks of winter fighting, their army suffered severe damage, their hold on New Jersey was broken, and their strategy was ruined. Fischer's richly textured narrative reveals the crucial role of contingency in these events. We see how the campaign unfolded in a sequence of difficult choices by many actors, from generals to civilians, on both sides. While British and German forces remained rigid and hierarchical, Americans evolved an open and flexible system that was fundamental to their success. The startling success of Washington and his compatriots not only saved the faltering American Revolution, but helped to give it new meaning.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/019518159X/?tag=2022091-20
(A history of aging in America surveys and compares actual...)
A history of aging in America surveys and compares actualities and attitudes in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries and suggests practical improvements on the current inadequate system of pensions, social security, medicare, and other programs.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195023668/?tag=2022091-20
Military historian university professor
Fischer, David Hackett was born on December 2, 1935 in Baltimore. Son of John Henry and Norma (Frederick) Fischer.
Fischer grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. He received an Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University in 1958 and a Doctor of Philosophy from Johns Hopkins University in 1962.
Fischer"s major works have tackled everything from large macroeconomic and cultural trends (Albion"s Seed, The Great Wave) to narrative histories of significant events (Paul Revere"s Ride, Washington"s Crossing) to explorations of historiography (Historians" Fallacies, in which he coined the term Historian"s fallacy). Fischer has been on the faculty of Brandeis University for 50 years, where he is known for being interested in his students and history. He is best known for two major works: Albion"s Seed (1989), and
In Albion"s Seed, he argues that core aspects of American culture stem from four British folkways and regional cultures and that their interaction and conflict have been decisive factors in United States. political and historical development.
In Washington"s Crossing, Fischer provides a narrative of George Washington"s leadership of the Continental Army during the winter of 1776–1777 during the American Revolutionary War.
(Liberty and freedom: Americans agree that these values ar...)
(A history of aging in America surveys and compares actual...)
(Fairness and Freedom compares the history of two open soc...)
(Six months after the Declaration of Independence, the Ame...)
("If one laughs when David Hackett Fischer sits down to pl...)
( Bound Away offers a new understanding of the westward m...)
(The social history of a New England Town 1750 - 1850.)
((History) FISCHER, David Hackett & KELLY, James C. Away I...)
(The 1969 printing of Fischer's definitive study.)
(Expanded)
Member American History Association, Hakluyt Society, Society of America Historians, American Antiquarian Society, St. Botolph Club (Boston), Princeton Club (New York ), Century Association, Society Cincinnati.
Married Judith Hummel, November 23, 1960. Children: Susanna, Anne.