Several commentators have seen Veblen's Norwegian background and his relative isolation from American society as essential to the understanding of his writings. Sociologist and educator David Riesman maintains that his background as a child of immigrants meant that Veblen was alienated from his parents' previous culture, but that his living in a Norwegian society within America made him unable to completely "assimilate and accept the available forms of Americanism". According to George M. Fredrickson the Norwegian society Veblen lived in was so isolated that when he left it "he was, in a sense, emigrating to America".