Book Description

Barbarian Germans mingled with Celts to combine their genes, their psychologies, and their cultures, creating the Swabians. In Ann Arbor, Germanic conscientiousness helped the Swabians replace most Americans downtown and on nearby farms. The Swabians also overcame Puritanical hatreds of Christmas and musical entertainments on Sabbath afternoons.Celtic spirituality blossomed until the feisty individualism of the Swabians splintered their community. Wieland shows how this inability to join together led to Swabian defeats. Carry Nation and others won the hundred-year fight against the German and the Celtic love of alcohol. In the latter half of the twentieth century, the University of Michigan expanded enormously, bringing many students who could vote at age 18 and many new staff members who disagreed with German politics. During the 1970s, radicals took over Ann Arbor and instituted the famed $5 fine for marijuana and other changes. Still, many individual Swabians in Ann Arbor today stubbornly display their Celtic and German ways of thinking and feeling.The book includes 160 illustrations and many personal interviews. There are over 300 references in German and English for further reading. the book contains over 400 pages with a full index.This is the first English account of the Swabians and their strange psychological makeup.For an overview of the book, go to: http://www.celticgerman.com